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What is Possible When You Open Your Mind to the Possiblities: A True Story
By Carlon Haas | July 23, 2007
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Picture this:
A coffee shop playing soft cool jazz. A whiff if cigarette fills the air. Men in black turtlenecks. Bohemian artists holding their spiral notebooks. They’re all waiting. Waiting to take their turn at the mike.
One by one they go up, effusing snappy poetic rhymes…some about love…some raging against the current political and social reality…and some just chilling out.
Amidst this scene, a man walks wearing a 3-piece suit, and looks like he is riding high on the corporate ladder. People don’t know him there. But in the corporate world, he is a high-riding VP of an insurance corporation. And before that, he was a big shot lawyer. And that’s EXACTLY what he looks like: a corporate executive.
The people are snickering, especially when he tells them his poem is entitled, “the Snow Man”. Now they’re humming Frosty the Snow Man with an undercurrent of hostility.
He steps up to the mike, and says…
The Snow Man
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitterOf the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare placeFor the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
The story you have just read is fiction. But the man and poem are not. What you have just read is a poem by Wallace Stevens.
For those of you who don’t know Wallace, all you need to do is open an anthology of American literature and you’ll find him in every single one.
Now, some of you might not like poetry. Or some of you might be thinking that there are tons of poets out there. But why single out Wallace Stevens?
Because Wallace Stevens wasn’t just a poet. He was also a lawyer and HIGHLY successful businessman who was named vice president of Hartford Accident and Indemnity. In fact, most of Stevens’ business associates had no idea he was a famous poet. He was a successful businessman before his poetry career (which he is now famous for) even took off.
He didn’t even start writing poetry until after he finished law school. He didn’t publish his first book of poetry until he was 44, and to top it off Stevens wrote some of his best poetry after he turned 60.
All the while he moved up the corporate ladder. He made no apologies to poetry critics (who probably thought he should be starving) for wanting to make money. And his business associates always held him in the highest regard for his business sense.
A world-class businessman who happenedto have won a Pulitzer Prize. Not bad.
I single out Wallace Stevens because there are people out there who try to force you into false dichotomies. They tell you have to do A or B, but not both. They hit you with the old tired clichés of, “Jack of all trades; Master of None.” Or “You can’t serve two masters.” You’ve probably heard them before.
You’ve probably talked yourself out of the possibilities. “I’m too old for that.” “I can’t do that! I’m a ______” “People would laugh at me.”
Look at all the writers out there who feel like making money somehow diminishes their art. Or look at the businesspeople who laugh at literature as being “not worth their time.”
It’s a pity.
They have defined themselves in ways that exclude the very things that could help them grow. They miss the chance to expand in newer and more fulfilling areas of life.
But this doesn’t need to be you. You don’t need to force yourself into some pre-defined box of what you’re supposed to be. You are free to do the things you want. You always have been.
For full disclosure, Wallace Stevens
That idea might be foreign to most businessmen or English majors, but Wallace Stevens shows what you can achieve if you are willing to accept that the “box” we put ourselves into does not exist.
And once you realize that the “box” does not exist…anything is possible.
So, go out there. Paint. Write. Play music. Start a business. Travel. Exist more…
Recourse List for those Interested in Wallace Stevens’ Work:
Wallace Stevens : Collected Poetry and Prose (Library of America)
A Reader’s Guide to Wallace Stevens
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Topics: Balance, Inspiration, Success Mindset |
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6 Responses to “What is Possible When You Open Your Mind to the Possiblities: A True Story”
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July 23rd, 2007 at 11:24 am
Yes, I emailed my jazz piano teacher asking him for his availability for the next lesson. And I will soon start the “experimental” classical piano lesson with Jacob as well.
You still have a way of nagging me even all the way from Korea. Amazing..
I’m kidding. Honey, thank you for the great post.
You rock.
HJ, QOS
July 23rd, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Excellent post my friend!
Steve
July 23rd, 2007 at 10:06 pm
The comments are appreciated. But this blog simply nudges…not nags:)
July 23rd, 2007 at 10:47 pm
You absolutely get an “amen brother!!” from me on this one, my friend… because I am intentionally combining the business and artistic aspects of my life. :o)
You are rockin’!!
August 1st, 2007 at 12:06 am
An awesome article. I know that being open to possibilities has taken me places I never imagined that I would be. The world of the internet is one of those places. Writing a blog on the internet is another. Sharing my writings with so many other people is still another. The internet really has made the world a much smaller place.
August 1st, 2007 at 9:55 am
Patricia,
Thank you for the comment on my article, and welcome to Possess Less Exist More. The internet has certainly made the world smaller. But more so it makes life all that much more fulfilling.