Jules Pascin, "Hermine in bed" watercolor on paper [Source]

Hermine David (1886-1970), was the wife of the artist Jules Pascin, the great-granddaughter of the artist Jacques-Louis David and herself an artist, making her debut at the Women's Salon in 1904. [Source]
 
In bed and feeling under the weather, you are forced to take stock of things, collect your thoughts, ponder Life.  You find yourself coming up short.  You wonder what you've been thinking lately.  Have you been thinking? 

I wrote an encouraging word to a friend about his writing.  He was asking if it was "worth pursuing." How many times do I ask myself that same question?  Like my friend, I want to be told the blunt bad news right off, so I don't continue and waste my time and make a fool of myself.  Just tell me it's not worth it, so I can grieve the dream and settle in to a reassuring sick bed of sad.  The Slough of Despond I think it's called, on certain maps.

This is what feeling under the weather can get you.  But I told my friend, "You are good enough to do what you need to do today."  Even a genius couldn't ask for more.  A genius would be happy to be good enough today.  What good is genius and talent if you aren't doing anything with it?   

People tend to talk about your potential when you've let them down.  Not measured up, in their book.  You have such potential.  Or worse, in the past tense: "He had so much potential."  As if you willfully squandered something.  But what does that mean?  A rock has the potential to roll downhill if you push it.  You have the potential to breathe.  I think everyone has unlimited potential.  Remember the guy who wrote a book with his left foot?  I always think of him when I'm under the weather.  I have congestion and a runny nose.  He had to write with his foot.  The jury takes one look at me and all they can do is scowl.  Slacker.

The feedback from a recent piece of my work is, "cleverly written and ill-conceived."  The piece I'm working on now lies at the end of the bed in a messy stack of reproach.  Last night I was sure it was the worst thing I've done.  Today I am only slightly more optimistic.  

My friend thinks I should write more encouraging words, and not so much about 1904.   I understand his point.  I want to say that 1904 was always just a conceit, an organizing principle, a stepping-off place, a way to situate my thoughts, a setting, a way to get started, a way to impose order and meaning on what might not have any.  Possibly clever but ill-conceived, you see?  Or not.  Just push that rock.  Get it rolling.  You'll find out.