I've struggled for a couple of weeks to write this report, experiencing the same kind of internal discouragement out of which the question arose in the first place. The question came out of my recognition that I'm actually going to grow old. In fact I am now, at 71, officially GROWN OLD. Believe it or not, this realisation actually has come as a surprise.

So here is a slightly less mysterious way of putting the question:

"Is love of doing creative work, is the joy of the process itself enough to make a career? To keep you going professionally in the face of the compromise, rejection and disappointment?"

The group was small, with people dropping in and out and I failed to get a list of everyone who did so, so I'll just list the first names of those I remember or who put their names down.

Andy (me)
Phelim
Kelli
Fiona

Below is a transcription of the notes I took. At the bottom of the page I report on the outcome of the session as I see it:

Question:
"Is Love Enough
or
Can Hope Triumph over Experience?"

YOU NEED COURAGE!!!

Feelings of Belonging
Marketing the sense of connection
Transactions - The Ideal Customer

THE HEART OF FIRE IS NOT CIVILIZED

How to get into Flow
VULNERABILITY AND CONNECTION
Different at different times of your life
If you have Hope you can make Love work
INTEGRITY AND LOVE

Love is not enough but you can't do it without it.

BITING OFF TOO MUCH…
BRAND IT DIFFERENTLY

You are enough
Example : Lost without words
Flow - Meditation in action
"When I stand I just stand"

Not without money
Where does the money come from?

Sattygraha…

IDEA: an invented word

To fight for Love (Imagination)
Real love is also as hard as nails

Action Practice
Place of possibility

FIVE SECOND RULE…
Count to five and just do it
Follow the tiny impulse right now
To take action

There's a connection between Love and Action

5 Second Rule
Offer - feeling of an exchange
Reciprocation - open to the offers

Those are my un-decifered notes.

OUTCOME of the SESSION:
The most important outcome of the session for me was something Phelim mentioned that he called the "Five Second Rule". We'd been talking about what Love actually is. Is it a feeling? Is it more than that? We talked about how love is ACTION. Action without any promise of reward.

So ACTION becomes a crucial expression of love, and the five second rule states, "when you've got an action to take, just take it." Count to five and DO IT. No matter how you feel. I've started practicing this quite a bit lately. This is how I did this report.

So for me the answer to the question I posed is:

"Yes, Love is Enough if you think of love as a practice, an action not just a feeling. Taking action in the face of reality takes courage even if you can't predict how it will turn out, even if you never find out, even if you NEVER CAN find out."