sarah masen
beautiful day (in the neighborhood)
by Tim Helmen on Sun Apr 01 22:19:45 +0000 2001 in The Arsenal
I think the monastic element comes in with the committed focus on simplicity—on doing one thing well and not getting distracted with other things.
Rogers clearly has kept a simple focus and has pursued his goal with thoughtfullness and purpose.
The sad thing is that our culture has created such a starvation for the kind of thing he provides: gently-paced and gently-presented attention to children as individuals. Rogers’ response to this problem is not railing against the culture, but in faithfully and consistently providing an alternative, an approach we would be wise to note well.
On another note, related to one’s calling…how are we to go about balancing our calling as, for example, artists, with our other non-negotiable responsibilities such as family? For myself, and I expect for many others, this is probably the single most difficult aspect of trying to excercise my gift. I would suspect most of the worst struggles artists face are in this area.
The single focus of someone like Rogers is admirable and praise-worthy, but often in "real life", it’s hard to implement this without feeling like I have to steal time from my other legitimate responsibilities in order to do it.
I don’t expect anyone to figure out my life for me here on this board, or to come up with the definitive guide to successful family life for an artist, but I’d be curious to hear how others manage…or don’t.
Tim
