Lodown

Thursday, September 07, 2006

The Joy of Pain

Previously, I had posted a list of things that scare me. Rand, being the positive chap that he is, asked that I next consider listing things that inspire me. That was a great idea. Except that when I thought of it, I realized I had not felt inspired in a long time. Which is a problem, considering that I am supposed to be deep in the middle of thesis work.

This brought me back to a question I have been grappling with for years. It has been a topic of many discussions over the years, but I don’t feel any closer to an answer. So I will post it here, my dear friends, for you to ponder and possibly respond to.

Does contentment kill the creative soul? Do we need angst in our lives in order to create?

I have done my best work while under some sort of emotional stress. And deadlines don’t count. Heartbreaks seem to produce the best quality of material, but frustration and anger are close seconds.

Some personal pains are, at times, too much to bear and do not produce work until we have had time to heal a bit, steep in those emotions for a while. Like Voix’s great work on her past relationship, some fires need time to burn out before they can produce art from the ashes.

During these types of discussions, I usually present the likes of Jack Kerouac, Ernest Hemingway and Vincent Van Gogh as evidence that true art can only flow out of a life filled with booze, women, and self-inflicted wounds to the head. These tortured souls died too soon and left for the world the fruits of their madness. What will I leave behind? A fat dog and a well-equipped kitchen.

In general, immediate torment has worked best for me. Break my heart and I will sit down and write about it in poignant detail. I will spend days in a haze of crazed typing, fueled with coffee and tears and emerge exhausted and fulfilled. But allow me to live in peace and tranquility and I will morph into a mute housewife, loving life and producing absolutely nothing of value. Which is preferred? I honestly don’t know.

posted by Alex @ 10:31 AM  

4 Comments:

  • At 2:09 PM, Blogger M said…

    When I'm content, stuff that I'd put aside to deal with the crisis-of-the-moment floats back to the surface. Not that I live in a constant state of angst, but when things are stable, my mind/heart are free to ponder unfisnished business, and I'm in a stable enough position to handle digging into some old Life Stuff. So no, I don't think contentment needs to kill anything. We can still process stuff while we're in a pleasant life place and write about it, and revise some things that came out during our last crisis. The angst-driven stuff is best, I think, when revisited and worked on when a one's in a calmer place. I think the initial draft of angsty rant-spewing crisis stuff (generalization, here) belongs in the journal.

     

  • At 10:43 AM, Blogger Rand said…

    I think that contentment can dull the edginess, the critical focus, that somehow seems more clear when one is in crisis mode.

    There's been some good brain research on this, lately focused on the fact that boys' brains, particularly the parts that moderate anger and impulse control, are not fully formed until boys are 23 to 25 years old.

    Part of our brain is very wild and undomesticated. Fear, flight, anger, lust, gluttony (seven deadly sins kind of stuff) are in there, and are to be tended and watched over by the reasoning and logic part.

    I think that the craft part of writing takes a careful eye and ear, and logic and reason. But the URGE TO WRITE, the drive to get something out of one's head and on to paper, comes from a very primal, emotional part of my mind.

    I'm essentially re-stating what CAVU has said very eloquently above. And I really like what you said in your post: "...some fires need time to burn out before they can produce art from the ashes..."

    There's a great book on alcoholism and writers called The Thirsty Muse. Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway and O'Neill are its subjects. The first three died from alcoholic self-destruction. O'Neill survived, stopped drinking at 38, and continued to create.

    Yes, it's all white men. Yes, alcoholism is not really angst - it's more one kind of symptomatic reponse to angst. But I really liked how this book debunked the myth of the "bacchanalian drunken creative soul" and showed how alcohol (and the incredibly crisis and depression-filled lives of these writers) was NOT a big help toward getting creative work done.

     

  • At 1:23 PM, Blogger Alex said…

    Interesting points. Except that I would dare say that Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway are "bigger" names than O'Neil. Not that fame has anything to do with it. I'm just saying.

    Who evokes the image of an "artist" more? Cobain or Grohl? Neither for me, actually. I lost my point...I think I'll go get a drink.

     

  • At 8:05 PM, Blogger Rand said…

    I always enjoy the Foo Fighters, but I bought my son a copy of Nirvana's Nevermind for his birthday and MAN that is one kickass CD.

     

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