Writers, if pushed, will admit
to a certain arrogance stemming from the perceived worthiness of their
work. Those who have invested time in the arms of humility understand the
territory reeks with a certain "divine madness." A state of creative being,
demanding suspension of reality in order to recreate reality in the image
of one's muse, mission, demon or central prime mover.
In the outside world, average people
remain average by consent; not lack of talent. Fear of ridicule or loneliness
drive the day dreamer to the bakery and back. For each violinist there
are nine who refuse to play due to an assortment of excuses. The cosmic
order of things anticipates these ghastly odds; thus we have music filling
the halls.
Darwin's axiom "only the strong survive"
seems relevant in the field of art as well as the jungle. It is the strong
in the arts who make the grade. They who overcome fear, reality, conformity
and in some cases sanity, are
Tomorrow's masters, saints and geniuses.
When the world criticizes or condemns these bold voyagers, it does so out
of fear, out of the mediocrity cowardly thrust upon itself.
The night is friend to the hungry writer.
A zone of privacy off limits to timid clock watchers. A bloody battlefield
where wars rage in minds intent on weaving truth through a blanket of fictional
discomfort. Only in suffering does progress emerge, a house-cleaning event
the comfortable would prefer to avoid at all costs. But Art was created
to trick the liar and the lynch men into applauding their just punishment.
Come all ye unfaithful to the place where
your mouths utter pieties your actions do not rise to. This is Art; this
is Writing and this is the Divine Madness that beckons unpopular persons
of courage. Oil landscapes and lovely songs of roses never answer the pangs
of conscience. Yes, even landowners feel its twitch in the back of their
flabby heads. What comfort can the king
truly take (in times of crisis) when
every empty-headed fool agrees on everything for every occasion?
Those who toil past the full moon - I
remind you, if I must - we are needed. We do have a place on a planet of
ignoble creatures plotting each others destruction. I have not yet decided
if our purpose is to prevent or document this stupidity. It may be both.
We do have a place, not above or below the crowd, but on the sidelines
laughing, crying and forever trying to
shape chaos into order. Into some form
of language that can instruct or at least survive our brethren's bestial
behaviour bent on belittling God, nature and humanity. It must be divine
madness to believe words have any bearing on the universe. But you know
they do.
