A book taking shape · Honolulu, Hawaiʻi
The exit.
i thought i was just going for a run.
The backside of Diamond Head. An ordinary morning. An ordinary road.
and then i could see it.
A world that had always been there. I had just never been able to see it.
The moment
It didn't feel like a door.
I was jogging along the backside of Diamond Head when a thought hit me hard enough to stop me mid-stride.
It didn't feel like something opening. It felt like noticing a world that had always been there and that I had never been able to see.
I could finally see the system of creation: the road under my feet, the clothes I was wearing, the shoes that got me there. Every one of them began as somebody's idea, built from something somebody else had made, layers upon layers.
Try it
Take away everything a person made.
- The road.
- The clothes.
- The shoes.
- The meal.
- The book.
- The words.
the landscape would still be there. so much of my world would not.
The system of creation
Layers upon layers.
Pull the layers apart. Choose one to look closer.
The land, the water, the sky. Everything else was added.
The question
Then it turned toward me.
Where was I in all of this?
I was inside a world other people had made. But what was I adding to it?
Without something of my own, all I was was reflections of other people's ideas, in layers upon layers. I could see everyone else's ideas around me. I wanted to be able to see something of my own there, too.
I understood that to be alive, I needed to create. To be part of that world of creators, and to put something into the universe that was unique.
Someone's idea.
Someone's work.
Mine, too.
That was the exit: out of reflecting, and into making.
The
Exit
Jay Corey
A book in progress
I'm still following that thought.
The Exit is the book taking shape around that moment, and the awareness that followed it.
You cannot leave a world you have not learned to see.
From reflecting other people's ideas, to adding one of my own. And then comes the first step: Do It Ugly