'To write one must first suffer,'
~(or something like that), Garfield the Cat~
Yes, this week's inspirational quote comes from a fat, lazy, lasagna horking feline of the cartoon variety, but hey, one scavenges a muse where one must! There's a reason this cartoon franchise has been popular for nearly four decades: he's a hilarious philosopher in animated fur, dare I say as witty and good-naturedly snarky as Miss Austen herself, though in a format far more suitable to modern minds (Heaven help us!). However you feel about the source, I think this sagacious line drawing has an excellent point. Have you ever read something by someone who has never actually struggled with anything in life? I'm convinced those are the sorts of people that write modern children's books, a literary class so vapid I'd feel bad lining my mouse cage with most of it (that is not to say there are not excellent children's authors out there, but most of the stuff churned out by the educational presses is only palatable to the people who printed it, least of all to the kids who should be reading it). There is a popular vocal artist in a music genre I've given up as hopeless in recent decades but I can never remember her name, I call her 'whiny teenager girl' and most people seem to know immediately to whom I'm referring, but at the beginning of her career, her greatest laments and struggles were those common to twelve year olds and she wrote scads of songs about them and it drove me up a wall.
There's nothing wrong with writing about what you know (indeed, a trait more people should exercise!) or writing music for a particular segment of society (twelve year olds for example) but when they play identical song after song after song and then repeat it over and over and over, so all you hear all day (if you work somewhere that plays only a certain radio station day in and day out) is whiny teenager girl lamenting her lovelorn anguish and how it isn't ever going to get any better at the ripe old age of thirteen, well, you understand where the term 'postal' might come from, even the most gentle and docile of temperaments must have their breaking point! She had not (and happily so) suffered much at that age and her music shows it, but why someone chose to make her famous and play her songs everywhere for the rest of eternity is beyond me, unless those children's book producers have now invaded the music scene, disturbing thought indeed! True art, of whatever form or format or genre, comes from the heart, and the more that heart has seen, loved, grieved, and suffered, the more moving is that art. Albeit suffering does not equate with talent (or perhaps taste?) as Picasso obviously suffered greatly, and though famous and renowned, I still feel like most of his masterpieces were filched from a seven year old's art case, but that's just me, perhaps I have no eye for that sort of art any more than I have an ear for music made for teenie boppers.
I've observed this in my own case, when writing (for good or ill), I always feel like my muse waxes hottest when I'm struggling with something significant, either present or past. And then there are those days that are bright and sunny and happy and I really can't write a coherent sentence, let alone a decent composition of any sort. Is it that those who have suffered have a greater understanding of our humanity, mortality, and the greater things beyond, or is it that they are driven to create as an outlet for their grief? Perhaps it is some combination of the two? If only we could find someone to write a nice little thesis on this theory, but as doctoral theses are far from works of art, no matter your discipline, that might be disaster indeed!
There's nothing wrong with writing about what you know (indeed, a trait more people should exercise!) or writing music for a particular segment of society (twelve year olds for example) but when they play identical song after song after song and then repeat it over and over and over, so all you hear all day (if you work somewhere that plays only a certain radio station day in and day out) is whiny teenager girl lamenting her lovelorn anguish and how it isn't ever going to get any better at the ripe old age of thirteen, well, you understand where the term 'postal' might come from, even the most gentle and docile of temperaments must have their breaking point! She had not (and happily so) suffered much at that age and her music shows it, but why someone chose to make her famous and play her songs everywhere for the rest of eternity is beyond me, unless those children's book producers have now invaded the music scene, disturbing thought indeed! True art, of whatever form or format or genre, comes from the heart, and the more that heart has seen, loved, grieved, and suffered, the more moving is that art. Albeit suffering does not equate with talent (or perhaps taste?) as Picasso obviously suffered greatly, and though famous and renowned, I still feel like most of his masterpieces were filched from a seven year old's art case, but that's just me, perhaps I have no eye for that sort of art any more than I have an ear for music made for teenie boppers.
I've observed this in my own case, when writing (for good or ill), I always feel like my muse waxes hottest when I'm struggling with something significant, either present or past. And then there are those days that are bright and sunny and happy and I really can't write a coherent sentence, let alone a decent composition of any sort. Is it that those who have suffered have a greater understanding of our humanity, mortality, and the greater things beyond, or is it that they are driven to create as an outlet for their grief? Perhaps it is some combination of the two? If only we could find someone to write a nice little thesis on this theory, but as doctoral theses are far from works of art, no matter your discipline, that might be disaster indeed!
No comments:
Post a Comment