For years I have stashed ideas in multiple notebooks and digital apps that were fighting in my mind to get produced. Fear and perfectionism have been my arch enemies in this battle. Well, today they lost.
This first piece speaks to another enemy of the soul – the pursuit of comfort. It’s based on my favorite poem from Kahlil Gibran, a Lebanese-American writer, poet, and visual artist. This poem comes from his most noted work, The Prophet.
Comfort kills ambition. Get uncomfortable and get used to it in your pursuit of your goals and dreams.
And tell me, people of Orphalese, what have you in these houses?
And what is it you guard with fastened doors?
Have you PEACE, the quiet urge that reveals your power?
Have you REMEMBRANCES, the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind?
Have you BEAUTY, that leads the heart from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain?
Tell me, have you these in your houses?
Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and becomes a host, and then a master?
Ay, and it becomes a tamer, and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires.
Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron.
It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh.
It makes mock of your sound senses, and lays them in thistledown like fragile vessels.
Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.
~ Kahlil Gibran – Houses
