What's the point?

There is nothing I can say that hasn’t already been written more eloquently, poetically, or distinctively than anything I can come up with. I don’t have a gift for startling wordplay or imagery that blows the mind. I feel like every word I type is more cliché, more trite than the word before: conservative, complacent. Dull. There is no luminescence, no scintillation. Every word, while maybe nice, is just that. There isn’t even any sort of new idea or premise that redeems my writing. You think perhaps I’m too hard on myself? Well, yeah. I am a bibliophile, after all.

Now, this isn’t a play for sympathy and it’s not false modesty – I’m not expecting you to come up saying “That’s so not true Avi, you’re awesome! Don’t be so hard on yourself!” PLEASE, whoever may read this (there are a precious few), don’t feel obligated to tell me something I don’t believe in. I will feel warm and fuzzy for a few minutes and then assume you are saying it to make me feel warm and fuzzy. So don’t bother.

I am also done as I have nothing more to say. If I ever did.

Something New! Are we excited?

Finally finished the comic-ish thing I've been working on for the past week (off and on)And RK and I decided to create a new blog for it - so here it is!

A Joint Effort

In other news, I think I have discovered what I want to do with my life. Sure, I’ve always had something in mind, but even up to this year I’ve never really been sure of my calling. I always figured if something gripped me enough to make me actually want to WORK HARD, it would be my vocation.

It happened last weekend when we went to Frankfurt. I have to say it was the most comfortable of the trips yet – comfortable in that I felt at home there, unlike when we were in Italy. Everyone we spoke to were so friendly and nice! RK knew German, which helped, but I also didn’t get “snooty vibes”, for lack of a better phrase, like I did in Italy.

But this is all beside the point. On the first day we visited a museum in Frankfurt, which (as far as I can tell – it was all in German) detailed the archaeological history of Frankfurt from bone necklaces and stone tools to the Roman occupation to Medieval and on up (I actually never got farther than the Medieval – I could have spent YEARS there.)

At the very first, looking at an amazing necklace made of interlocking bone pieces, I was suddenly gripped with an urge to draw what I was seeing, so I would always remember it. Luckily, I happened to have a small leather journal in my purse, so I whipped it, and a miraculously existent pencil, out and sketched what I saw. It was hard work and gave me a crick in my neck, and drew some odd looks from passersby – but it was worth it!

I suddenly realized I was doing something that kindled a fire within me, despite the fact that it was hard work. It wasn’t really the act of drawing, which I have always enjoyed. It was engaging with the artifacts I was seeing, learning about them and (it’s so hard to describe!) somehow satisfying a thirst for knowledge by recreating them for myself. This museum convinced me I do indeed want to work with artifacts from Europe’s past – not necessarily drawing them, but discovering. I’m not sure how, yet, but rarely have I felt this – gripped!

And unlike Oxford, which left me with the profound sense of Knowledge Unattainable, this museum experience left me more with the feeling that THIS was something I could do, and do well – something that would satisfy my thirst.

The bone necklace which inspired me (and a lovely silver ring, also from the museum):