(no subject)
Beauty and Anarchy
I read somewhere once that most people that die by falling from great heights don’t actually die from the impact, but from heart-failure well before they ever hit the ground. I thought about this for a while the other night and wondered what the key difference is between a parachuter and a suicide jumper - other than the parachute itself.
At a bar this evening, I was stricken with the realization that the difference is the placement of belief. The parachuter believes that the parachute will catch him/her. The jumper doesn’t believe anything will catch her/him. As small of an amount of belief as it may be, it’s enough to send a message from your brain to your heart that it will inevitably “be okay.” For a person such as myself that has become somewhat as “belief-less” as they come, I realized I should probably not tempt the odds and parachute at all, just in case I can’t convince my heart to wait for the landing.
The reason I bring this up is because of this feeling of lack. I never liked hearing writers coat their text with an overlying despair that is inspired by having been ‘put upon’ by society, or upbringing, or the powers that be . . . and being that these are my favorite things to bitch about, I’ll try to keep myself in check. That being said, contemporary American society is, artistically, an organized blood bank that drains the individual of all life through a series of tubes and hoses that coil between genres and around throats, endlessly churning and mimicking the sounds of productivity, until they drain in the Hudson River somewhere, beneath a giant sign that reads “Thank you for your contribution. Sincerely, the Critic.”
I have stopped looking at art, specifically music, as having social responsibilities and/or a fate or purpose. Although I do not believe in art for art’s sake, if for no other reason than that the act of producing art at all can be seen as utilitarian, by meeting the need/desire that the artist has to 1.) create and 2.) put out for consumption her/his creation, I will say that I can see the validity in allowing a piece to stand on its own. Like all good parents, eventually the artist has to detach himself/herself from the piece and let it grow, and be misinterpreted, and bleed, and be worshipped like all other living things. I note this because I want to make a marked differentiation between a characteristic of art that I have seen in my individual perception, and one that I am trying declare as scientifically innate. Music is anarchistic. I suppose that I should say, “In my opinion, music is anarchistic.” But, I’m also tired of monotonously repeating suffixes and prefixes of tolerance and ambiguity that we’ve had breed into us by an apathetic, but un-offensive, educational system. Opinions, even obstinate ones, are not a sign of intolerance, but humanity. I mean, in my opinion, opinions are not a sign of . . ..
Anarchy, by definition is often thought of as a social cure or disease, depending on the camp from which you read, but I’m not speaking in this essay on anarchy as a unified force to oppose the oppression of governed rule, but of individual force that inspires the self. “Inspire” - often either co notating that the subject at hand had either had life breathed into it, or it had been moved to action. Different hairs from the same head. Here though, I am talking about action.
I have friends staying in this room tonight, so I’m keeping myself from lighting cigarettes while I write. It’s hard. I think about the direction this country is headed, and the evolution of the people. There are endless possibilities where this nation could be in 500 years; there is, however, a safe bet to be placed upon the condition of the human spirit in 500 years. The one thing that has evolved, but not become swayed by evolution, is the human spirit. Throughout humanity’s written history, people have been cloaked beneath the umbrella of every form of governmental ruling imaginable. The coping mechanisms and the breath of this collective movement have remained constant. People have turned to music, art, religion, and writing, among other things, to regain the strength to continue being a cog in the wheel of evolution. Not to be a reductionist, but these things could all be categorized beneath yet another very hip umbrella . . . beautiful thoughts: the poet turning to the lyre; the sculpture turning to the young breast; the saint looking for the keyhole to heaven. These are the moments that truly govern.
It could very appropriately be said that this is merely optimism. I guess in a way, one could say that; but, I’m not trying to pit elation against despair. The argument between pessimism and optimism is not usually about perception, though, but the angle of the blinders. Should we love that people suffer? Should we love that death is still a mystery? Many people believe that if the answer is no, then we should ignore it, in order for our perception to be clear. A pursuit of beauty is not a segregation of good and evil, or sorrow and joy. On the contrary, it is the pursuit of a miner, that is willing to dig for her/his treasure, whether night or day. The obviousness of joy is no guarantee that we will find the beauty that we truly seek. Here, I struggle to decide if the appropriate word would be beauty or truth. All the great struggles are for one of three things. To me, right now, ‘beauty’ seems to work the best because it insinuates that it’s the fulfillment of an idea. That is specifically what beauty of any form does for us. It makes us believe that we are either seeing an ideal in a state of completion . . . or at least one that is nearly there.
When the monotony of a job, or the oppression of dictator, or the scars of love leave a body tired at the end of a day, and they turn to the words or the paint or the melody of a piece, it is then that we can realize with great anticipation that beauty is the true personal revolution. Music becomes the anarchy that compels the spirit to action. And, like mice, we heave our shoulders, once again, to the wheel of time and keep it going.
-http://www.garrettsoucy.com/
28 November, 2003
I read somewhere once that most people that die by falling from great heights don’t actually die from the impact, but from heart-failure well before they ever hit the ground. I thought about this for a while the other night and wondered what the key difference is between a parachuter and a suicide jumper - other than the parachute itself.
At a bar this evening, I was stricken with the realization that the difference is the placement of belief. The parachuter believes that the parachute will catch him/her. The jumper doesn’t believe anything will catch her/him. As small of an amount of belief as it may be, it’s enough to send a message from your brain to your heart that it will inevitably “be okay.” For a person such as myself that has become somewhat as “belief-less” as they come, I realized I should probably not tempt the odds and parachute at all, just in case I can’t convince my heart to wait for the landing.
The reason I bring this up is because of this feeling of lack. I never liked hearing writers coat their text with an overlying despair that is inspired by having been ‘put upon’ by society, or upbringing, or the powers that be . . . and being that these are my favorite things to bitch about, I’ll try to keep myself in check. That being said, contemporary American society is, artistically, an organized blood bank that drains the individual of all life through a series of tubes and hoses that coil between genres and around throats, endlessly churning and mimicking the sounds of productivity, until they drain in the Hudson River somewhere, beneath a giant sign that reads “Thank you for your contribution. Sincerely, the Critic.”
I have stopped looking at art, specifically music, as having social responsibilities and/or a fate or purpose. Although I do not believe in art for art’s sake, if for no other reason than that the act of producing art at all can be seen as utilitarian, by meeting the need/desire that the artist has to 1.) create and 2.) put out for consumption her/his creation, I will say that I can see the validity in allowing a piece to stand on its own. Like all good parents, eventually the artist has to detach himself/herself from the piece and let it grow, and be misinterpreted, and bleed, and be worshipped like all other living things. I note this because I want to make a marked differentiation between a characteristic of art that I have seen in my individual perception, and one that I am trying declare as scientifically innate. Music is anarchistic. I suppose that I should say, “In my opinion, music is anarchistic.” But, I’m also tired of monotonously repeating suffixes and prefixes of tolerance and ambiguity that we’ve had breed into us by an apathetic, but un-offensive, educational system. Opinions, even obstinate ones, are not a sign of intolerance, but humanity. I mean, in my opinion, opinions are not a sign of . . ..
Anarchy, by definition is often thought of as a social cure or disease, depending on the camp from which you read, but I’m not speaking in this essay on anarchy as a unified force to oppose the oppression of governed rule, but of individual force that inspires the self. “Inspire” - often either co notating that the subject at hand had either had life breathed into it, or it had been moved to action. Different hairs from the same head. Here though, I am talking about action.
I have friends staying in this room tonight, so I’m keeping myself from lighting cigarettes while I write. It’s hard. I think about the direction this country is headed, and the evolution of the people. There are endless possibilities where this nation could be in 500 years; there is, however, a safe bet to be placed upon the condition of the human spirit in 500 years. The one thing that has evolved, but not become swayed by evolution, is the human spirit. Throughout humanity’s written history, people have been cloaked beneath the umbrella of every form of governmental ruling imaginable. The coping mechanisms and the breath of this collective movement have remained constant. People have turned to music, art, religion, and writing, among other things, to regain the strength to continue being a cog in the wheel of evolution. Not to be a reductionist, but these things could all be categorized beneath yet another very hip umbrella . . . beautiful thoughts: the poet turning to the lyre; the sculpture turning to the young breast; the saint looking for the keyhole to heaven. These are the moments that truly govern.
It could very appropriately be said that this is merely optimism. I guess in a way, one could say that; but, I’m not trying to pit elation against despair. The argument between pessimism and optimism is not usually about perception, though, but the angle of the blinders. Should we love that people suffer? Should we love that death is still a mystery? Many people believe that if the answer is no, then we should ignore it, in order for our perception to be clear. A pursuit of beauty is not a segregation of good and evil, or sorrow and joy. On the contrary, it is the pursuit of a miner, that is willing to dig for her/his treasure, whether night or day. The obviousness of joy is no guarantee that we will find the beauty that we truly seek. Here, I struggle to decide if the appropriate word would be beauty or truth. All the great struggles are for one of three things. To me, right now, ‘beauty’ seems to work the best because it insinuates that it’s the fulfillment of an idea. That is specifically what beauty of any form does for us. It makes us believe that we are either seeing an ideal in a state of completion . . . or at least one that is nearly there.
When the monotony of a job, or the oppression of dictator, or the scars of love leave a body tired at the end of a day, and they turn to the words or the paint or the melody of a piece, it is then that we can realize with great anticipation that beauty is the true personal revolution. Music becomes the anarchy that compels the spirit to action. And, like mice, we heave our shoulders, once again, to the wheel of time and keep it going.
-http://www.garrettsoucy.com/
28 November, 2003