A paragraph in Doris Lessing's book "The Four-Gated City" has lingered in my mind for quite some time. It seems we are in an era of creating our own image of ourselves to accomplish ANY goal. Pragmatism preaches that man can make the world as he chooses, just as long as it is PROFITABLE in our lives. The sense of entitlement reigns. Do whatever works for YOU!

JACK'S LABEL

"Jack had become a painter because at the end of the war he had not wanted to go back to a settled life. He needed a label. What was more respectable than to be a painter? Years before he would have had to fool himself that if he was a painter, he would be able to live the life he wanted under that label. But the war had taught him that there wasn't time for anything but essentials, he said. In the war he had learned that you must take what you wanted, and fight for it. If you were an artist you could get away with anything. You should either be very rich, an artist, or a criminal. He had acquired some canvas and an easel and some paints and had bought a lot of old pictures from a junkshop which he kept stacked about the walls for the sake of their atmosphere. He did a few days' work with sand, rubble, bits of sack and some glue and some paint, and behold, he was an artist, with a label he could use on passports and forms."

OUR LIVES ARE NOW FULL OF JACKS WITH LABELS

DON'T BE JUST A LABEL!

Tom Schilling, July 19, 2020