A Quote by John Edgar Wideman
I try to cope by doing what I do, what I find purpose and joy in. For me, that has been writing and playing ball. It doesn't make the pain go away, but what else can I do?
Related Quotes
I always try to have a positive and warm intention that is not about me. It is easy to make everything about yourself. But you take the weight off when we make it about the audience. It's about the joy you can bring to somebody else instead of the joy that you get from doing it.
I always try and find a purpose in what I am doing - even when it comes to wrestling... when I go into a wrestling match I'm trying to find a purpose for why I want to win. Through that, it brings happiness.
I've never worked a day in my life. The joy of writing has propelled me from day to day and year to year. I want you to envy me, my joy. Get out of here tonight and say: 'Am I being joyful?' And if you've got a writer's block, you can cure it this evening by stopping whatever you're writing and doing something else. You picked the wrong subject.
And what you do is you go into where your anger is, if you're writing anger, you go into where your hatred is, if you're writing hatred. Your joy is, if you're writing joy. You find the source of the energy that draws hatred, anger, joy, etc., etc., etc. That's what you have to find. That's what you do as an actor and that's what you do as a writer. And you bring people to the page.
I've been acting a long time, and I can play a Cockney gangster or a womanizer in my sleep or standing on my head. But what I try to do is I try to find characters that are as far away from me as I possibly can and then make them real. A French Nazi is about as far away from me as I can possibly get without actually going to Mars or something.
I've just been playing football for a long time. I've been playing football since I was a little kid, so it's just some natural blessings that God has blessed me with to get to the ball and understand what I've been doing over the years.
The whole purpose of letting pain be pain is this: to let go of pain. By entering into it, we see that we are strong enough and capable enough to move through it. We find out that it ultimately has a gift for us.
I loved that playing the guitar wasn't easy. It was pain, but it was my pain. And then it became joy. My joy.
The exercise of benevolence is joy to loving hearts: the more pain it costs, the more joy it is. Kind actions make us happy, and in such joy we find communion with the great heart of Jesus.
When I was doing those things with the Berlin circus, playing the accordion, going to North Korea - I felt all those things were just me experimenting and letting myself go. Everything before seems like a constant searching. Now that I think about it, I feel so lucky that happened; that I didn't find my voice straight away, that I didn't find my passion straight away, that it took so long.
When I was playing, it was me playing both ends of the floor, playing offense, playing defense and I gave the ball up with assists. It wasn't like me doing one thing, scoring 25 and having three assists and one steal.
I don't plan on writing biographies of great sports stars who are still playing ball. But I did write one on Jackie Robinson, who was playing ball in the 20th century.
There is a certain degree of pain to be experienced in the search for self-knowledge, as there is a certain amount of joy. You just do it because you find yourself doing it. There just doesn't seem to be much else worthwhile.
Just having conversations with God, begging God to make the pain go away, and then the pain wouldn't go away. So I'm like 'Who the hell am I talking to? God is not responding.'
Nobody likes the ball low and away, but that's where you're going to get it from me. I been pitching it there 50 years, away from them. That way they can't hurt you. You keep the ball in the park.
My dad would go to work every day and write in a room full of funny people. He enjoyed it. I know great writers who find the process agonising but to me, writing has always been sheer joy.
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