Long Art

It is so easy to forget the most profound lessons. Why? It would save such heartache and frustration if memory served us all better. Oh, look forward everyone says... but where is the lesson in that except one might better avoid the agony of the trip and fall.

Hippocrates knew... but we forget... over and over: "Life is short, the art, long... judgement is difficult. It is not enough for the physician (substitute artist) to do what is necessary... the circumstances must be favorable."

I was involved in a documentary film titled Long Art a few years ago. The title was inspired by events from my personal history so you'd think it would be ingrained in me by now. I think it is but the noises of the present often drown out the lessons of the past. The part I always forget - which is the most comforting - is that circumstances must be favorable. The divine injustice of circumstance... Darfur, New Orleans, the Gulf Coast... it's a list as long as the history of the world. c'est la vie.