“The true poem is not that which the public reads. There is always a poem not printed on paper… in the poet’s life. It is what he has become through his work. Not how is the idea expressed in stone, or on canvas or paper, is the question, but how far it has obtained form and expression in the life of the artist. His true work will not stand in any prince’s gallery.” - Henry David Thoreau

The above is one of my favorite quotes. I first came across it as a teenager at a time when I was immersed with thoughts about my future and what it meant to pursue a life in music. I recently had some interesting conversations with some friends about the nature of creativity and the definition of an artistic life, and as I thought about how to discuss this idea on this blog, this quote came floating to me from the memories in the back of my mind.

I do not come from a family of professional musicians. They are all music lovers and my mother is an amateur pianist, but my family members are all educators, scholars, researchers, and activists. One of my uncles, a mathematician, was one of my closest relatives during my childhood. My brother and I wrote handwritten letters to him every week, and would receive one back from him as well. These letters are some of my most prized possessions, and the joy I felt in reading them is one of the strongest memories I have from my childhood. Although I was only seven years old, his letters to me were filled with his thoughts on life, his work, his research, and his philosophical musings about the nature of the universe and its connection to everything around us including the arts, sciences, and humanities.

When I was about ten, he finally completed one of his great life opuses by solving a celebrated mathematical problem. Taking a break from his work, he came to visit and shared with us how he came to the solution. He was kind enough to show me his published theory (which, of course, I couldn’t even remotely fathom) but he took the time to explain to me as though I could understand. He had been working on the solution to this problem for 15 years. This fact alone boggled my 10 year old mind - why that was even longer than my age! I asked him how he could think and work on one problem, one idea, for so long. He then told me about a trip he had taken to France in which he visited the beautiful gardens and home of Monet in Giverny. Inspired by the natural setting and beauty, he decided to walk back to the city he was staying in rather than take the train back as he had planned to. He ended up walking for over five hours to get back to his hotel. I was astonished. “Why didn’t you just take the train back?” I asked. He calmly replied, “Because I wanted to think.” What I took from his anecdote was that time - whether it be 5 hours or 15 years or even an entire lifetime - becomes irrelevant when one endeavors to reach for an original insight.

Since then, my uncle has continued his research into another theory, another chapter and challenge in his life’s work. My formative years were colored by conversations and the sharing of ideas with people who I believe, like my uncle, lead an artistic life in their respective professions. There may be many layers of interpretation to Thoreau’s quotation, but I have always interpreted it to mean that an artist’s best work and the true meaning of his life is always yet to be discovered; that is, the essence and definition of what it means to be an artist lies within the very act of questioning, searching, and seeking. There is always a possibility that we may never discover what we hope to find. We may reach the end knowing that what we have learned along the way is not even remotely close to satisfying, and we may spend a lifetime pursuing an idea or belief that ultimately has no resolution - but this in no way means that the search itself was futile. An artistic life celebrates and values the courage needed to ask the question that allows us to continue searching and growing - not for “any prince’s gallery”, but because the question itself reveals the infinite dimensions of our relationship to the world around us.