When red sun drops and cooling night rolls in Darkness masks both danger and our vision Ancient minds fear day won’t come again Courage for the delicate seems thin We wrestle with our indecision When low sun drops and a new night rolls in But now , fresh stricken by the dread of sin Who protects us from derision? Our ancient mind fears day won’t come again As we sleep we’re entertained within Bold dreams squander all illusion When sunset comes the darkest night rolls in In dreams we see new life arising Then fancy turns to full communion The ancient mind dreads day won’t come again Despite such angst, our sacred life began When sperm leaped up in proud confusion. When deep sun dropped and a new night rolled in All human hearts cried,Day shall come again”
Maybe there are not many people who become published poets or novelists over the age of 60 but there are some like Mary Wesley who was 70 I believe
Apart from maybe having less energy I don’t know of any definite reason to stop anyone from trying to do any tthing
And it is not a brilliant intellect or genius light skills.. it is not those that matter what really matters is that you’re not afraid of producing imperfect work making a mess or making a fool of yourself
I don’t mean tha5 if you produce a horrible poem that nobody would like to read that you should go around trying to force people to read it. You will eventually have to judge is the value of what you produce but you won’t produce anything good until you’ve produced a lot of work with some of which will be good.. eventually if you keep trying. I never supposed that I was earn a living from my writing.
But it is very interesting trying to write a poem and it’s good when some people that you know are interested and want to read your writing.
But it’s not something that you will get fame from etc No you will enjoy doing it if you have the courage. And as we get older we need to have interests that we can pursue at home if necessary in case we become disabled, It’s the worthwhile activity. Nowadays it seems to be expected that you’ll find your later years watching the television
But there are other alternatives and for art I would suggest that is better to go to a class at least at the beginning even if you want to go for a year or two only because that will give you a start and give you basic knowledge and to see what other people are producing. I had four years as a class and I was very impressed with the work of many of these students who were mainly retired people and they did not realize how good they were.
If you really feel afraid of exposing yourself to really heal back producing really bad poetry or stories or anything else maybe you should try baking instead.
Baking is a rewarding activity both in the making of bread and cakes and in the eating of them not to mention the lovely smell in the house when the oven is on and full of nice things
One thing I have found with art or writing is it feels like me I recognize myself in it whereas with mathematics I don’t feel like that at all even doing research it did not feel like me possibly because there’s no room for the idiosyncratic and the personal in mathematics Anyone could have proved that theorem.
Anybody could paint a picture of a tree but there’s no one picture of the tree that is the real picture they’re all feet of response to the outside world and their relationship with it whereas mathematics is impersonal
Finally why do any of these things at all? Well because it’s beneficial to try to keep relating to the world whatever age you are
It’s nice when somebody likes your work but I think many of us would do it even if no one else ever read it
And I suppose I should say I lost a friend because this person told me when I first began that my poetrt it was no good and I should stop doing it immediately. And when I didn’t she was very angry. So maybe she wasn’t really a friend because if your friends are trying new skills and new hobbies or even trying to produce the best-selling novel please do not discourage them in any way even if you are jealous
If you are jealous then it means that you are not using your own skills your own talents and that’s what you’ve got to do so use the jealousy as source of energy to get you going to say I’m sure I could write something as good as that or as interesting as that or as terrible as that
But don’t pay a vanity publisher 500 pounds it’s a produce a book of your writing unless you have taken their advice of some good friends
Because unfortunately we are not always good judges of our own writing and we can see the joy and pleasure of producing something with the joy that we would get if we produce something wonderful.
Babies like to play in the mud and make mud pies and they enjoy very much but this does not mean that the mud pies are beautiful to other people
So play in the mud by all means but don’t expect everybody to value your productions as much as you do yourself which is a rather dismal note on which to end but it’s it proves that it’s good for you to do it but you need some guidance if you want to go further with it.
How my heart sings 