I'm reading the biography of a person who grew up listening to the talk of people who saw Abraham Lincoln with their own eyes and heard him speak. Now here's the part that's freaking me out: I was born eleven years before this gentleman died and married three months after his wife died. As I was born after the Korean Conflict ended, I'm obviously not that old.
The biography is titled, Carl Sandburg A Biography, by Penelope Niven. It's 843 pages long and it's meticulous and it's detailed and it's engaging and it's very interesting. Carl Sandburg did so much in his lifetime it's mind-boggling. Just the main stuff will leave you winded. He was a journalist, a movie critic, an author, a biographer, a poet, a lecturer, a musician, a political activist and a salesman. One of Ms. Niven's descriptions of Sandburg left a mark.
"A man participating in his times."
Carl Sandburg's work contained, and it doesn't matter what role you choose, signs of the times. He was influenced by war, social injustice, the working class man, labor relations and industry to name just a few. While crisscrossing across the United States either reading poetry, lecturing, performing songs, interviewing movie stars, researching Lincoln's biograhy, selling stuff or promoting the socialist party, Sandburg built phenomenal street cred. He had his finger on the pulse of America and he wrote about it.
One need not be a writer to participate in one's time. It's a matter of assimilating what's going on in your world, processing it through your internal filters, adding your DNA and letting it loose upon the planet. Bob Dylan comes to mind as an example of a muscian doing it. But one not need be a celebrity either.
I have participated in my times, on a minimal basis, throughout my life. For the most part however, I was chasing what I believed to be the "it" of what others were doing. No worries. There is no right or wrong tied into this question. It's just a prompt to ponder.
For a glimpse into the world of a young lady who I believe to be participating in her times in a most meaningful way, check out Lisa Nielsen. Lisa, whose day job involves working in the largest school system in the country, not only writes about innovative learning, she is a front line warrior in the unschooling movement.
