2 thoughts on “Neil Hilborn’s Poem “OCD””

  1. I had some additional thoughts:

    I couldn’t tell the difference between genuine nervous tics and artistic performance, and I wonder what that says about the border between personal reality and performance, especially in our brave new 21st century.

    Also: it’s a little sad but not at all surprising that the real-life love story behind the poem didn’t end with “happily ever after”. It tells me two things. First, that the primary role of painful experiences might be to provide the raw material to build something beautiful and meaningful (i.e. “art”) out of the chaos of life experiences that refuse to be anything but capricious, random, and meaningless. Second: that maybe a happy-ever after relationship is itself the highest form of art. We keep waiting, because that’s what young adult fiction and the movies they spawn tell us, for the universe to convert our relationships into art and deliver them to us with a bow. But that’s not how it works. What we get is a box of parts with a label “some assembly required” and no instructions. It’s our job, our most important work of art, to turn that into beautiful, lasting relationships.

  2. I love idea that our relationships are works of art we are supposed to be building. It reminded me of something another friend posted on Facebook from Jim Gaffigan – the gist of which is that his (Gaffigan’s) kids make him a better person. The work we spend on these relationships and the impact that work has on our own lives is the single most important thing we can spend time on. Which makes me feel a bit guilty.

Comments are closed.