My Co-blogger Eli Alberts
gave a poetic mediation on a Chinese poet who left a record of his daily life.
Now that blogging is part of the landscape, looking for antecedants becomes interesting - who could write, and maintain the flow and interest. Eli adds another point though...
Tao Qian, also known as Tao Yuanming, who was perhaps the first hermit in Chinese history to leave behind a record of his life in poems, often remarked that there were none in his own age who "recognized his tone," an allusion to a story of two friends, one a master zither player. Whenever he played his friend listened whole-heartedly, until one day his friend died. With nobody left to play for the master zither player stopped playing. Little recognized during his own lifetime, Tao Qian's poems only achieved renown hundreds of years after his death and served as an inspiration for later hermits and officials whose political aspirations failed to meet their mark.
Several bits in this tight paragraph - about ho without effort, the music - and by extension anything that flows from it - ends. And how we seek solace in solace itself.
It has made me believe I should be more poetic, less cynical and sharp, in my blogging, because it is solace, to some extent, that we seek.
Happy New Year all.