DOES “THE WORLD” HAVE TO “CATCH UP?”

I remember a comment from my teenage days by one of my neighborhood high school friends. Mike said, “Frankie, you are ten years ahead of your time.” I was surprised at the remark, and never really made much of it. I thought it was a bit patronizing at the time.

HERE IS MY POINT. Especially in literature, but also in other “higher arts” generally; does the world have to “wake up” to the revelation of what the artist is presenting? ( I think I wake up to the wonder of Jimi Hendrix playing the guitar, every time I listen to one of his songs). It seems there is a “slow dawning” process that happens with some of the greatest artists ever, whatever their genre might be. For example, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde, and too many more to mention, died relatively unknown ( some unpublished) in their own time. It’s as if the world “had to catch up with them.”

What a position to be in for some great artists. To be great and not know it, ( if being great means “acceptance, approval and acknowledgment”) until you start playing “your harp in the sky.” (smirk)… “or until the chariot swings low and scoops you up”… the life of a writer, with all of its wonder and mystery, can sometimes be a long walk down a dark lonely road. “Hats off to all writers.” Death gets us all, eventually. Frankie The Earthman.