I create in a lot of different ways, and get confused about what kind of work I’m doing. I write songs. I write philosophy. I write furtive polemical microposts on social media. I make music. I write lesson plans and slides. And I realized this morning that I don’t sufficiently distinguish between these drastically different modes of creation.
Aluminum came to mind. A 20 x 20 x 20 cm cube has 22 kg of mass. How we shape that raw cube depends on what its purpose will be. Some anchors are made out of aluminum; that 22 kg chunk ought to more than do the job for a small fishing boat if shaped well. Aircraft wings are also made out of aluminum, and the material in that anchor would be enough for the small stabilizer on the back of a Cessna. The same aluminum achieves opposite purposes through purposive shaping. A Cessna stabilizer need not — perhaps cannot — be a good anchor. Just so, a philosophical text need not — perhaps cannot — have the virtues of poetry, nor ought poetry justify itself as a legal argument would.
I found this aluminum metaphor freeing.