Poetry, Chemistry, and Purpose

Yesterday evening after I got off work, Justin and I went to a reading by the poet Toi Derricotte. While Derricotte is not going to make the ranks of my favorite poets, she had a lot of interesting things to say. There are a lot of things I could write about from the poetry and prose she shared or the conversations Justin and I had after wards about it, but I am going to set most of that aside and just touch on one idea.

As she talk about her poetry, the process of writing, and the way writing had pulled her out of deep depressions you could see in her this innate drive to write. She had to do it, it kept her alive, it was who she was, it was her passion. I wondered what it would be like to be drive by such a strong purpose and passion, then I realized that we all are to some degree. It is more expressed among the writers and artists of the world, but I see no difference between the force that causes a poet to write and the urge that keeps a friend of mine in his chemistry lab all night. The need to create, discover, cultivate, contribute. Whether it is highly visible or not, we all have driving passions in our lives. Things that we do for the sheer joy of doing them or because we feel some sort of urgency or call to do them. They aren't always big things, or things that make sense to anyone else. We may have never articulated these drives, even to ourselves but if we stop and look they are there - and if we haven't looked yet, maybe we should.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhLlnq5yY7k