Harmonizing!
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Someday this period of my life will make sense.
Til then, I will gladly settle for music.
I have a feeling, though, that what's best in us emerges in our creations. Which is why people look to their children with such hope; they want to pass on what's best of themselves (honesty, honor, maybe hair color).
My music is often the "best Bill" I can put forth... in person, I'm the story of imperfection. My music can exceed my person.
Like many authors who have written odes that make the spirit soar, and in person they seem petty, ordinary or imperfect... poets of gorgeous delicacy who, in normal life, are misogynistic drunk bastards. Not to say I'm a misogynistic drunk bastard, or a poet even, just making an example.
Making "art" = reaching for the highest point of perfection I can achieve and taking a snapshot there to share with the world. Like leaving breadcrumbs (or raisins, or aspirins) for other travelers through life ---> "This way, dudes." Trying to sum up all I know of this world, everything I've learned.
Someday maybe my life will merge with my "art." My life itself will be the creation. Maybe it already is. Somerset Maugham kind of addressed that in "Of Human Bondage," talking of life itself as the final great masterwork, a bright weave of imperfection, beauty, life experience.
Makes me wonder if I should move to a far-off land and help starving children.
Time for another cup of coffee, maybe.
2 comments:
bill your writing is getting much better. not that it was bad, but you are getting in touch with yourself and expressing it. i dig!
You're right to make a connection between making art and raising children. For me, art is about paying attention to the details and trying to make things better. The further I pursue it, the more it envelops every aspect of life. (This is why artists are usually good cooks.) To make something really good takes your whole self; this is why Jekyll-&-Hyde artists always crash and burn - the conflict between their self-destructive urges and their creative task overwhelms them. I think to make a lifetime of art you have to bring your whole life into it, make it all one path of learning about yourself and healing yourself. That's why to me, having kids looks like part of the same natural progression - a way of integrating a life's worth of knowledge and wisdom.
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