When I was in grammar school we all had to take part in the army cadet corps. Few aspects of this experience have stayed with me as having any value at all. Today, however, I dredged up from the past an idea that is at least metaphorically useful. This is the idea of “night vision”.
It seems that if you are required to go from an illuminated context into a place where it is dark, at first you will be able to see very little. After ten minutes or so (depending on the contrast between the two levels of illumination) your eyes will adjust to the new situation. Although at first it seemed to you that you could see nothing at all, after a suitable period of adjustment you will be able to see a surprisingly large amount.
This is useful, of course, if you are asked to go out on sentry duty at night. This is not a task I’m required to do these days, but the idea is useful when I have to go down the garden to feed the hedgehog at night.
The concept struck me as a valuable metaphor for a common artistic experience this afternoon. Having just finished a period of intensive activity, during which I was pleased to be quite creative, I have run into a time of inactivity during which I am doing almost nothing at all from an artistic point of view. Instead of getting worried about this, and fearing that I might have lost my creative mojo, I’m going to regard this as a period in which I am adjusting to “night vision”. There is no point in rushing around. All I need to do is be quiet and still, and after some time I am sure that something will come into focus.