Creating without clinging
I listened to an interview with the Swedish author Gun-Britt Sundström. When she was asked how she feels about people still discovering her 50-year-old book, Engagement, she answered:
“It’s not written by me.”
She went on to explain that she isn’t the same person she was half a century ago. Not in a nostalgic or regretful way, just a simple truth. Then she added:
It feels good in the same way I feel when something good happens to my children or grandchildren.
I think that’s such a lovely way to express it.
Feeling good about something you once created without being tied to it. No ego, just gratitude. No head in the clouds, just both feet on the ground.
The world could use more of that. Too often we try to recreate the past, and every time we fail, of course.
It’s the “isness” that makes things magic. The creative energy of the now, that’s what brings out the originality, the extraordinary, the sense of being connected.
It’s the appreciation of this moment, here and now, that leaves the print of something timeless.