THE ATLAS STORIES · III
Creativeness
A short story from The Mask is the World
A sculptor is preparing his final work: a giant white bird that will carry his soul into the sky.
But after a lifetime of statues, mistakes, destruction, repetition and change, he begins to wonder whether his greatest work is really the sculpture in front of him.
READING TIME · approximately 4 minutes
This is my greatest work.
This statue will be my last sculpture, and my chisel will write a song that will echo throughout all the dimensions of time and space.
My chisel is sharp like my thoughts and precise like a surgeon’s scalpel, with every strike carrying all its ancestors, then, like poets, swaying just a little. As every strike sculpts the earth’s rocks and beautiful white marble, time and repetition have sculpted the edge of this tool… and my soul.
My strikes have frequently looked for the life buried deep in the heart of rock, and I discovered that what I was really searching for was me.
As if I was, while sculpting rocks, polishing the surface of a mirror to see the reflection of my face in it.
I am harshness and rigidity, and the soul can’t be rescued from the heart of the inanimate without severity. Statues imprisoned in marble are chained like an idea stuck in primordial darkness, and must be rescued.
I am fluency and softness. I am the longing, buried deep in the void, for smiles and laughter and tears… and for the warmth of a silent look.
I am all the numerous deeds, the search for destiny, repetition, discovery, danger, safety, ignorance, and knowledge… and it is all good.
I’ve created tens of statues. Statues of heroes, lovers, villains, enemies, and soldiers. I’ve made angels and demons. I made pillars and stairs… and I never saw in any of them what I see now.
I made a goddess of victory, leaning forward as if she was driving a ship, and a sea creature devouring a priest under the orders of a mysterious will… I thought then that beauty was in expressing the stories of the ancients and their understanding of the world.
I made a troubled searching thinker, and a giant gate as a symbol of freedom hugging the poor and the wretched… and I thought then that beauty was in capturing the pains and dreams of normal people.
I made a shiny dog, and scary, but gentle, mother spider, trying to protect her children fiercely, even though she could barely carry herself… and I thought then that beauty was in challenging the expected old concepts and styles.
I made tens of statues, and I saw so much wreckage and pain, and it was all important.
Between each group and the next, I had to retrain my eyes and my hands… and I had to cross on the rubble of my thoughts.
No creation is possible without breaking and pain. No creation without cruelty. No creation without repetition and multitude… without waste, and without many trials. Thousands of mistakes have all consumed my flesh and ideas and hours.
I’ve endured loss and regret, and loss is inevitable with every strike, because removing the inessential is essential if you’re aiming for perfection.
How I’ve looked for precision in the flood of many words, because time has no mercy.
How I’ve changed throughout all this!
With every statue I’ve released from the prisons of stone I saw myself, for a while, imprisoned in its place. My work has always been an imprisonment of myself in the space of its own creation, and a limitation on its potential. Don’t our works imprison us when they become our identity and representative?
I saw my soul forced to carry all these statues forever. Every statue coming out of the void of similarity becomes an eternal burden for its maker. People see statues and they can only see me with them… I am their hostage forever.
I carve the features of my soul on the statues, and the statues carve the features of the world on my soul.
“My poor soul… how will you ever fly if you had to carry all these statues?” I used to think.
But now I have an answer, and this is why I’m doing my current project.
Everything I’ve made before this was a burden one can’t fly with, and this is why my last sculpture will be a giant white bird, to carry my soul into the sky, dragging all the statues behind…
It will be graceful, delicate, and light… no – more. It will fly with wings of ether.
How do I know?
How can I be sure that this great work – my last statue – will fly?
Because I’ve seen through the multitude and repetition and many faces, that one simple image.
The image that freed my soul.
My great work is everything I’ve ever done, seen through new eyes.
Beauty is all that… the image of the soul and its carvings on the stones of the world.
Everything I’ve ever created before this…
All the heroes and angels and demons…
All the pillars and stairs and walls…
Every dust particle,
Every strike…
Every beautiful mistake,
All of it…
It was all a passing cloud that I’d carved out of the world’s weights,
Even if, then, I didn’t know.
I know now… because I now only look at the sky,
And I’ve made enough clouds…
Beyond the Story: The Chisel
My Last Sculpture is one of three stories in The Mask is the World that correspond to the three movements of The Atlas of Worldly Wisdom: Awareness, Intent, and Creativeness.
The chisel represents Creativeness: acting upon the world until something takes a desired form. Creation is not one inspired moment. It accumulates through attempts, mistakes, repetition, destruction, learning, subtraction and innumerable small strikes.
The sculptor eventually discovers what Great Work means. Every failed experiment, abandoned direction, influence, scar, and achievement becomes material for what comes next. Creativeness is not merely making things. It is the continuing transformation of the world and, through the work, of the creator.
| AWARENESS | INTENT | CREATIVENESS |
|---|---|---|
| 🗺️ The Path to the Perfect Map | 🌉 We Will Cross the Bridge | 🗿 My Last Sculpture |
| Knowledge → Awareness | Planning → Intent | Action → Creativeness |
Explore the Ideas → The Atlas of Worldly Wisdom
Explore the Stories → The Mask is the World