marooned

I had not heard anything about the uber-genius Freeman Dyson since reading 'The Starship and the Canoe' about a decade ago.

The New York Times Magazine had a feature story about the venerable heterodox's take on global warming and other things.

His belief that creativity is subversive hit me where I live. As I'm working on designing and illustrating my first manuscript for Harper, I've been running along that razor's edge between creating something novel and daring, subversive if you like, or going with what I know to be successful, since I ardently desire this book to be successful itself. (Successful enough to keep me in funds so that I can continue to write and illustrate books--it's rather fun.)

I've lived long enough to know that necessity is the mother of convention, and having a mortgage to pay and a kid to raise is a powerful pile of necessity.

So. Risk or safe?

Why, compromise of course! But if what you produce is not NEW and INTERESTING, it will be overlooked or quickly forgotten. So risk is safer, yes?

Safety can be risky, but risk is not always the sure route either. So I'm risking no matter which route I take. Therefore I might as well risk, since there is always risk. Risk is not truly risky, since nothing is safe.

I have to lay down now...