Being experienced but not an expert is like living in the in-between world forever as a “between creature”. Sure, maybe I am an “expert” compared to some, but not objectively. I think of this a lot when I think about poetry. Going through the whole world’s poetry and really feeling it, feeling that I have a grasp on it, spending more than 20 years immersing myself in it as an amateur aficionado, I have a grasp on it that no layperson would have but will never have the kind of in-depth knowledge to be more than a dabbling dilettante or to become a professional academic/expert in this area. Every field has a technical or depth threshold that I have never had much desire to cross. It is like being a journeyman forever.

Much of life is lived in this “in-between” place. Never fully in one place or another. Never fully done with the past, always looking toward the future – so never fully in the present.

Naturally this too reminds me of a poem.

Evolution
–Marin Sorescu (Romania)
It is time to learn from the bats
The between-creatures
Who can home in the dark.

Learn flying blind.
Dispense with the sun.
The future is dark.

In Between Days – The Cure