Saturday, January 20, 2007
16.~~~~~~~~~~
There is so much to be said, so much that clamors in this brain to be said, and it is impossible to stop. I shift from envying those who can maintain a calm flow, like a river not subject to the seasons, to daring—and it takes a high-pitched state of boldness—to despise them. And that shift itself, how I long for a partner in crime who does not patronize me for that, who is as close to me as the fingers that type this. All we can ever know or have a right to know is our honesty, and how febrile, how debilitating it is. We cannot be honest for anyone else. We train in this school of shame at ourselves, cowering at our boldness as if it belonged to another who wielded fierce weapons. The discipline is not against us but for us, our necks on the chalk line, a discipline that refuses the reward of knowing we can communicate, that these words might possibly be shared. This is the private world, where we are finally allowed to love ourselves and ignore praise and condescension. A private death with no mourners. When I know I cannot allow anyone to read or hear me then I know I am at the proud center, the tree in the forest, whose falling will be for myself alone. And this alone is what I will offer to others, without apology for whatever interruption it might cause. Hearing the resonance myself is enough, but the resonance is in the air, and so strikes everyone within earshot. I cannot suffer as the creator without suffering also as witness.
All art, meaning that which lives in contempt and undisclosed fear of what seeks to understand and include it, is the willful accident in the midst of this contradiction. Artists are no elite above the common herd but are most humbled by our prosaic, incestuous need for the other, to validate, mirror, understand us, come to me Jesus, Buddha, with your embracing forgiveness and mothering. Then the childish reaction—we’ve had enough. There is no middle ground, no synthesis, no wisdom. And no neat conclusion (as in non-fiction, in theory) that can tie the whole together in a single more useful truth. ¶ 9:01 AM
There is so much to be said, so much that clamors in this brain to be said, and it is impossible to stop. I shift from envying those who can maintain a calm flow, like a river not subject to the seasons, to daring—and it takes a high-pitched state of boldness—to despise them. And that shift itself, how I long for a partner in crime who does not patronize me for that, who is as close to me as the fingers that type this. All we can ever know or have a right to know is our honesty, and how febrile, how debilitating it is. We cannot be honest for anyone else. We train in this school of shame at ourselves, cowering at our boldness as if it belonged to another who wielded fierce weapons. The discipline is not against us but for us, our necks on the chalk line, a discipline that refuses the reward of knowing we can communicate, that these words might possibly be shared. This is the private world, where we are finally allowed to love ourselves and ignore praise and condescension. A private death with no mourners. When I know I cannot allow anyone to read or hear me then I know I am at the proud center, the tree in the forest, whose falling will be for myself alone. And this alone is what I will offer to others, without apology for whatever interruption it might cause. Hearing the resonance myself is enough, but the resonance is in the air, and so strikes everyone within earshot. I cannot suffer as the creator without suffering also as witness.
All art, meaning that which lives in contempt and undisclosed fear of what seeks to understand and include it, is the willful accident in the midst of this contradiction. Artists are no elite above the common herd but are most humbled by our prosaic, incestuous need for the other, to validate, mirror, understand us, come to me Jesus, Buddha, with your embracing forgiveness and mothering. Then the childish reaction—we’ve had enough. There is no middle ground, no synthesis, no wisdom. And no neat conclusion (as in non-fiction, in theory) that can tie the whole together in a single more useful truth. ¶ 9:01 AM
