Catch a Spark…

Here is a line I am going to co-opt from the movie, A Complete Unknown. Pete Seeger asks the young Bob Dylan what he is doing in a New Jersey Hospital coming to see the ailing Woody Guthrie, having tramped all the way from Minnesota. I don’t know…maybe catch a spark, replies the fictional Bob Dylan (the line is something like that.

This is it, right? We all want to catch a spark. We all want that moment when we realize our talent is aligned with a need in the world and our time has come. For Dylan that spark was his ability to write songs (lots and lots of songs) that touched a nerve. The right person with the right ability at the right time can catch a spark and ignite a bonfire.

We all want to catch the spark. Then, what? To what end do we strive for success. Can we control the blaze when the fire in our belly starts a fire in our world? The movie’s title and the movie itself do not answer that question when it comes to Bob Dylan. The unknowable character rides away alone on his motorcycle while others are left to clean up the embers and ashes left behind.

The idea of catching a spark is a romantic ideal. I believe we should all try and there are many times in my life I had hoped for it.

We should also hope for the ability to control it so that we, too, are not scorched by the flames orchoked by the smoke, forever scarred both within and without by the fire we started.