Kat Dodd
Since we have just gotten through the holidays, I would like
to reflect on one aspect of the holidays that people often avoid and complain
about doing themselves, but enjoy all the same: Cooking. I hear people moaning
and groaning around me about the effort that goes into cooking a great meal for
themselves and their families/friends around the holidays. No matter how great
the end product was for yourself or for others, cooking a great meal takes
time, energy and even money. Similarly, writing is a chore to many people that
have to do anyway whether it is for work or school. It can even be a chore to
those who enjoy it the most, the aspirational writers like us, who fall into
the trap of “writer’s block” or simply grow tired of laboring for the reward of
completing a piece we have worked on.
I am one of those rare lovers of both cooking and writing,
though even I have times in which I must force myself to do both. Right now, I
cook for a living and I write as a hobby although I have the urge to create
cooking on own terms quite often and it comes to me in creative bursts in the
same way. Both of these activities are like a deep meditation for me, requiring
complete focus and dedication in order to execute the end product to the best
of your ability and create a sense of self-reflection that you can actually
share with others. This is true of any art worth mentioning. The best things in life are often not free as
the cliché suggests, they require focus and sacrificing your time as well as
your energy, which is a cost usually greater than money.
Because of this realization, I would suggest that the
holidays are not only the time to appreciate what you already have and the
power of giving to others. It is also a time to realize that the same effort
that goes into the reward of the holidays, time and money, can be applied to
your daily life as you ring in the new year. When you second guess the
sacrifices you make to be a writer or to make others around yourself happy,
think about how the world comes together to create the beauty at the end of the
year and what contributed to that. Think about the actual end product of
appreciating the present moment at hand.
Write about your cooking job.
ReplyDelete