Anthony Bourdain and the Third Thing
I know that my life is out of whack when I lose the ability to read. Because to lose the ability to read, for me, means that I've lost the ability to relax. To be present. To be okay with having nothing better to do.
Or even worse, it means that I feel like reading, my one constant passion and comfort, isn't a thing worth spending time on.
In the last week or so I've gotten the ability to read again. I was inspired by a journal here (sorry I can't remember which one. But thank you, whoever you are) that described reading as a rhythm. And lately I've been in need of a rhythm. A thing by which to differentiate the passing of each day. (it's 2020. we all know the feeling. I won't go on about it.)
[I just fact checked this. It was @thedominica. and she used the word momentum - not rhythm - which actually better describes the relationship with reading that I was trying to get back to.]
The thing I decided to read was Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. It was recommended to me, multiple times, by the same person, long ago. I knew they recommended it for a reason - because they saw something in it that reminded them of me or that they thought I might see too. And so I wanted to see what that thing was.
The thing I saw was a Third Thing.
To make a long story short. A guy (who is a poet) spent his life married to a woman he loved (who was also a poet) and when she died, he wrote a piece about their life together that was published in Poetry Magazine.
It's a beautiful piece that'll make the right kind of person (me) cry on the right kind of day. But the part that matters goes like this:
"We did not spend our days gazing into each other’s eyes. We did that gazing when we made love or when one of us was in trouble, but most of the time our gazes met and entwined as they looked at a third thing. Third things are essential to marriages, objects or practices or habits or arts or institutions or games or human beings that provide a site of joint rapture or contentment. Each member of a couple is separate; the two come together in double attention."
I want to zoom in on this part:
"Third things are essential to marriages, objects or practices or habits or arts…"
Because it's the part that matters when it comes to Bourdain and, more selfishly, where Bourdain begins to matter to me.
Bourdain is a great writer. This is a fact. But he's a great writer because he's writing about food.
It's food that /allows/ him to be a great writer. The writing is in service of the love of food. The food is the third thing.
/
Now this realization isn't novel. Or even one that I'm learning for the first time. Like most lessons about creativity. It's one I've learned before and forgotten.
The insight here is that the relationship between a person and their thing (their craft, their art, their whatever) /is/ a relationship already.
The reason creation can feel like suffering for so many people is because the love for the craft is an unrequited one.
No matter how much you love coding, coding will never love you back. No matter how much you love writing, writing will never get any easier.
Except when it's directed at a Third Thing.
Mastery for the sake of mastery means nothing. There is a reason masterpieces exist. They're an application of skill. They're a third thing. They're mastery in service of something else.
Which is to say that passion and skill need an outlet. They need a direction. There's no masterpieces without mastery. But mastery shouldn't exist without masterpieces either.
It's the only way to have a satisfying relationship with your craft. To allow it to support you, to encourage you, to enable you. To love you back.