Creative Comedown and Particle Physics

I had this thought: that perhaps what we know as "creative comedown" -- that semi-long-ish period of sadness and meloncholy (and nostalgia) that follows a huge artistic push -- has something to do with the unifying theory of the cosmos.

But seriously.

I can't put all the pieces together. There are too many; they are too fragile. They seem unrelated.

So here's the scoop, in a roundabout, unfinished way:

--My friend Manuel's second book of stories has just come out, and I wondered how it might feel to have so many people suddenly reading your work at the same time, particularly in a rather contained geographic area. Whereas before a book is out, it's a smaller group of readers: short story journal subscribers, your mom, close friends you trust--spread out over a large geographic area.

--I asked Manuel what he thought of this cracked idea, and he wrote to me: Creative comedown coming from work that was finished long ago...sounds more like the true nature of starlight and its speed to you while you're looking up at a night sky from the backyard. It's been over since before you got there.

--Then I was reading this article in the New Yorker, about the world's largest (at least so far) particle accelerator. And it opened this idea that what if creative work--music, art, writing, film--could be thought of as an actual beam of particles sent in a conscious stream from the artist, out into the universe.

--That beam of particles is then received by the "audience."

--A note for the new novel: "time is not linear, it is not a circle. time is a fog, existing all around you all at once, with no visible end or beginning."

--"Light pollution," says another note. I keep coming back to it.