A wise friend, when I was in the middle of moving and noted that I could neither train nor paint nor sew, commented that "the budo is inside" me now, so that when life interferes for periods of time, it is not so important.
Confession: It is sometimes hard to discern what is mature acceptance of that reality and what is laziness about training. I have trained a couple of times now and this week not at all because of a (definitely non-contagious) laryngitis combined with the fatigue of a brand new day job. It felt like a self-indulgent decision (per the little voice, not stilled by the throat disorder, murmuring "but you'll feel BETTER if you train tonight!") until I got home and pretty much collapsed in a chair. So mature prudence is what I shall call it.
It strikes me that I have never sat in this kind of self-judgment over not painting or sewing for a week or a month. There was one extended period of not painting (about 1975 through 1987) during which I always knew "someday when the time is right I'll paint again," accepted it and went on. In recent years, I've tended to alternate periods of sewing with periods of painting due to the need to earn a living doing a third activity. I might get cranky or weird from not having a creative outlet. But it never seemed like a moral or character based decision.
I wonder why martial arts training has felt different?
2 comments:
Maybe training is "work" and sewing and painting are "play?" When play has a moral dimension in our society at all, it's usually a negative one, while work is viewed as morally desirable.
Along the same lines, training is supposed to be good for you, so failing to do it is like refusing to eat your vegetables.
Interesting thought, but no, for me sewing and painting have always been - regardless of the commercial outcome - very clearly "going to work," they simply happen to be work I love.
I suspect the vegetable analogy may be closer to home.
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