Macaw Daily

David Grossman profiled Polish author Bruno Shulz in the June 8 & 15 2009 edition of the New Yorker, introducing me to another name to add to my Must-Read list.

Grossman describes the yearning for an Age of Genius in Shulz’s work:

The Age of Genuis was for Shulz an age driven by the faith that life could be created over and over again through the power of imagination and passion and love, the faith that despair had not yet overruled any of these forces, that we had not yet been eaten away by our own cynicism and nihilism. The Age of Genius was for Shulz a period of perfect childhood, feral and filled with light, which even if it lasted for only a brief moment in a person’s life would be missed for the rest of his years.

These are beautiful words that describe the idea I have for Macaw Daily.

I believe there is a wealth of creative talent in every person, and if we all could just let go of our own insecurities or attachment to what others may think of our work, we would never have a bored moment in life. We would be engaged, constantly inspired, and perhaps even nicer to each other because we’re always making something that will make at least one other life richer.

Perhaps these are stupid and lofty ideas I’m tossing out, but they’re my deepest convictions.

Grossman continues:

Did the Age of Genius ever occur? Shulz wonders. And, if it did, would we recognize it, answer its secret call? Would we dare to relinquish the elaborate defense mechanisms that we have constructed against the antediluvian wildness and volcanic abundance of such an age, defenses that have, bit by bit, become our prison?

I’ll certainly be answering the call, and I hope others will join me.

[Photo credit: Flickr user torres21]