A Forum For Me to Rail Against:
October 27, 1997
Once again, this has happened with the prompting of my friend Anne. (And, once again, I encourage you to visit her Pimped-Out Homeslice Page. It's better than free tickets to Disneyland. But then so is colonic irrigation).
There are those of you reading this who may fancy yourselves "creative types". Now I don't mean to demean or discourage you; obviously I lump myself into that number, or I would not have posted this page on the Web in the first place. (At least, I really hope there is some intelligent life out there.)
However, being creative types and, by extension, having slightly more brain than the average, you will surely be aware that your very intelligence and originality of thought have caused you to be branded as "freaks" of one stamp or another, largely through daring to think that there might be more to life than re-runs of Melrose Place and sales at the mall.
Now begins the rant part, as I let you in on a bit of my own experience. Shudder in anticipation, for you are about to learn a little of .....
But the flipside to that is that we aren't just like other animals. Although we are considerably more screwed up in many ways (what other animal destroys its own habitat or bands together to kill its own kind en masse?) we have an intellect and, along with it, the ability to creatively imagine a better or more beautiful existence. To me, that's what art is, in all its forms; an attempt to graft beauty onto the twisted, malnourished plant that most people would let the human race become. Sometimes that beauty is manifested in holding up a mirror to what is most ugly and forcing the unaware to look it in the face. Sometimes it's like the death cry of the swan, supposedly the most beautiful sound imaginable, in that it's the sound of a solitary soul crying out its loneliness and pain. And sometimes it's just a depiction of something lovely.
It seems to me, though, that the most beautiful art rises out of the deepest pain; look at my personal favorite, Beethoven's 9th Symphony. It's called the "Ode to Joy" and the lyrics (from a poem by Schiller - and the first time an orchestra and chorus were brought together in this fashion) are a paean to the Brotherhood of Man and equality of people. All his life, Beethoven was a democrat (in the true sense of the word) and supported Napoleon, whom he believed was bringing in the rise of the common man.
When Napoleon captured Vienna, Beethoven welcomed the advent of, as he thought, a new age of enlightenment, as did many of the artists of the time. He was very swiftly disillusioned. Napoleon was nothing more than a cruel, power-hungry despot, and his Great Common Man consisted of an unwashed rabble who literally raped and pillaged everywhere they went. Beethoven's idealism was shaken to its foundations.
Nonetheless, in the last years of his life, he composed the most beautiful music imaginable to present this message of the potential of humanity, even knowing that he would never see it brought to fruition. Add into the equation the fact that he was stone deaf before he ever started and never heard a single note of his masterpiece, and it becomes amazing, tragic and yet uplifting almost beyond belief.
He also never married, and was despised by most people who knew him as an arrogant, cruel and overbearing lout of a man. Sadly, much of this stemmed from his trying to conceal his deafness, both out of embarrassment and shame, and out of the knowledge that if it got out that he could not hear, it might well destroy him professionally. Yet, in the face of all of this, he managed to raise a voice which he himself would never hear in one grand and glorious cry for love and harmony.
What I am trying to say is that the true artist is one who understands the way things are, but does not accept that they have to be that way, and makes an ongoing and unflagging effort to present to the blind masses illustrations both of what is wrong with things as they are, and of the way that things ought to be. Part of that, of course, is celebrating the rare moments of peace and beauty. It is ironic that, again and again, I read of the great artists (in all disciplines) having horribly sad and lonely lives. I think that, in order to gain the perspective and compassion necessary to create worthwhile art, one must first suffer almost to the breaking point. (It is surprising and reassuring to me to find how far one must go to reach that point. We are stronger than we think.)
My name for the process has been "the tempering of the sword". As another saying goes, "That which does not kill us makes us stronger".
If you are a person who is isolated from those around you, you have no direct way to express the despair and loneliness you feel. Such emotion will find its way out in some fashion. Better, I think, to create art than to destroy people. That seems to be the other alternative. It would be so easy to become angry and bitter, to lash out and destroy in order to gain revenge. But how much better and more noble it is to present love in the face of hatred, wisdom in the face of ignorance, and to never lose sight of one's own ideals, however much others are losing theirs - or perhaps never had them.
Today the world is as advanced in some ways as it has ever been. There are in some countries less disease and more prosperity than have ever existed, but in other places people are starving in the hundreds of thousands. In our own country, children are having children and killing each other in the streets. You cannot live, love or worship the way you wish without some evil, manipulative, intrusive busybody telling you how wrong you are, and that God will judge you. Has there ever been a time when the world needed artists more?
Let me tell you something, all you freaks and weirdos who grew up on the outskirts of the herd, yearning for acceptance and love from those far less worthy than yourselves: You were always right, and the sheep were always wrong. Have courage. You need it, not only for yourselves but for others who are too blind or stupid to know that they need it too. You are creative voices in a world of mutes who have only you to speak for them. This should be your vocation, your labor and your love. Persevere, and only grow stronger in the face of opposition, for ignorance opposes nothing so strongly as it opposes the truth.
Would you like to come back to my place?
