Surprised by joy!

Well put Andrew Klavan:

But perhaps I wasn’t made to be a doomsayer. The dying of things—of art forms and civilizations as well as people—seems to me the inevitable and steady state of the world: a point of view that leaves me prone more to melancholy than to panic. What I really care about now is the immortal parts of mortal enterprise. I want to get at the spirit of human business: the wisdom and vitality of a culture’s Great Moment preserved in the artifacts it leaves behind. The irrelevant—the stuff that doesn’t matter but is simply beautiful—the music, the poetry, the pictures and storytelling—the arts—that’s where all the joy is, and it’s the joy that seems more urgent to me as the years pass.

I have neglected this most important task for a number of years now. Certainly health (the lack thereof) has played a mordant role, as has being a conservative in a sea of anarchism, but undoubtedly the most crippling  reason for my enforced artistic inactivity has been lingering doubt about the role/efficacy of the arts in the 'real' world.
I have lost my joy! Perhaps it is recoverable, I want it to be and shall endeavour to explore this possibility over the next few months...