mulberryshoots

Today, I noticed a quotation by a venerated Japanese painter, Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). Hokosui was a late-blooming artist who was remarkably well-traveled and turned out more than ten thousand woodblock prints.

 “All that I made before seventy is insignificant. At seventy-three, I began to understand how animals, plants, trees, birds, fish, and insects are constructed. At ninety, I will enter into the secret nature of things. . . and when I am one hundred and ten, everything–every detail–will live.” 

I was happy to come across this perspective and to learn that instead of feeling marginalized as you get older, that there’s still time to be creative–and moreover, that it need never stop.

Later this morning, I noticed an interesting observation made by James Schiro, a lead director of Goldman Sachs who passed away recently from multiple myeloma.

“Shortly before he left Zurich Financial, Mr. Schiro was asked by The New York Times to cite the most important leadership lesson he had learned in his career as an executive. He quoted Colin Powell who said:

         “People don’t like change, but they can manage change,” he said in part. “They can’t handle uncertainty. I think it is the job of leaders to eliminate uncertainty.”

So I guess for people like you and me, we can manage change, like growing older and being creative; what’s harder is feeling certain that we can still find ways to be creative.