Hard Rock and lightning

[sartorias]

Below is a riff I scribbled last June, when I was sitting in the Hard Rock cafe. I was accompanying some kids, and I'd thought the adjacent village of shops would be covered. Nope! But I'd brought along my notebooks, and before tackling the current p, wrote these notes, which I just rediscovered while clearing my desk

Comments

[starshipcat]

Oh, lordy, this is the sort of "artists are unstable" stuff that leads well-meaning parents to squash a young person's budding artistic talent "for their own good," thinking that if they can just force their beloved child to give up that scribbling, or doodling, or whatever and squeeze them into the mold of a productive little 9-to-5 suit, they can ensure their child's happiness and healthy long life.

I have many painful memories of my own parents' remarks about artistic instability and whatnot that, while on the surface were clearly impersonal observations, were by tone and other signals clearly intended as directives for me to make fundamental changes, even at the cost of my essential self. And never hearing the phrase "we love you" except as a means of inducing guilt, of making me feel like a total ingrate for not making the changes they wanted me to, for not giving up my dreams and learning to love the prosaic, the ordinary.

And there was no way to get them to understand that giving it up would be losing me, and that the thought of having my body walking around working and whatnot but me dead inside was far more horrifying than the thought of true death.

[sartorias]

True . . . yet how stable are we when the drive is at its strongest? I'm open to any ideas.

[starshipcat]

But is "stable" the be-all and end-all of human goodness, to which everything else should be sacrificed?

[sartorias]

I don't think so, and you don't think so, and i suspect most reading here don't think so, but we both know people who will stick to that firm conviction, no matter what. (Even if they can't quite define what "stable" really is, other than "not creative.")

[starshipcat]

I think what irks me is the element of "eating the meat while despising the butcher." So many of these people are quite happy to read and enjoy fiction, to listen to music, to admire the beauty of artwork, even as they trash the creators as Unworthy people because they're "unstable."

[pjthompson]

It's the old "not in my back yard" syndrome. It's fine for other people to have to deal with things, but I don't want my kid to go that way...