Nulla dies sine linea is a Latin phrase, “no day without a line.”Â
In his book Naturalis Historia, Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD) attributes this maxim to Apelles of Kos, an ancient Greek painter. This maxim summarizes that Apelles had a regular custom that he never passed a day without practicing his art by drawing lines, no matter how busy he was. When I spotted this sentence on the Internet on the 16th of November, 2023, I realized I do something creative each day. Whether photographing or writing a text, there is no day in my life when I do not watch the photographs I’ve taken earlier or do not write a line of words for my blog. Indeed, a day without a creative activity is not a day for me.
I’d been writing one text daily for almost one and a half years (from the 4th of July 2021 to the 31st of December 2022).
Since then, I have written one text daily for over 95% of my days. I won’t write how frequently I do street photography, but I do it regularly. In today’s post, I want to stress that I have unconsciously implemented the ancient art maxim in my life. I did it without knowing the Latin “Nulla dies sine linea” phrase. The more I create (e.g., subsequent “Diaries” editions), write, photograph, and arrange pictures with texts (I want to stress photos are frequently simple illustrations to texts, without any connotations), the more I want to do it.
I hope that my commitment to creativity can inspire others to embark on their own creative journeys.
Indeed, I hope to be creatively active until my final days. I would be glad to live 100 years with each day of daily creativity. On the day when I wrote this text, I was 38 years old. I genuinely desire to be in the creative flow and do not want to stop this process.
