Art. What an elusive word sometimes. Sometimes Art is just a feeling I get. Sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes it completely overcomes and overwhelms me. But what is it really? Can it be defined? Should it? What do we use to see Art? To feel it? To know it to be true? False? Who is and isn’t an Artist? Is it still Art if it lacks meaning but still produces feeling? How much “Art” these days is pointing us towards nothing but meaninglessness? What does that mean?
“Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term ‘Art,’ I should call it ‘the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.’ The mere imitation, however accurate of what is in Nature, entitles no man to sacred name of ‘Artist’…I have mentioned ‘the veil of the soul'.’ Something of the kind appears indispensable in Art. We can, at any time, double the true beauty of an actual landscape by half closing our eyes as we look at it. The naked Senses sometimes see to little—but then always they see too much.” - Edgar A. Poe, from “Marginalia” (June 1849)
I like to imagine myself and call myself an Artist. I believe it to be true. I really do. I mean, I am always seeing too little or too much. And if you thought that was a joke, it wasn’t. If you completely understand what Poe and I are saying, then you just might enjoy this blog.
Am I a good Artist? Well, I don’t think that even matters. I never started writing to get published. I never started writing really because I wanted to, but because I had to.
You know, I don’t really plan on getting published. I truly do not want any credit for these ramblings. And I am not just saying that because I know that everyone won’t agree with what I have to say I feel to be true here. I am saying it because these blogs…they are really nothing more than my conversations with God, and I know those books were already written too—that is not what I am saying either.
I am trying to tell you this isn’t about me in the way a lot of people might think it is. This is about me making sense, or trying to make sense of life, of myself, of living a life full of pain and suffering and what that means.
And if I can help, even just a minute amount, one—just one other person, then that is…well, exactly everything I could have hoped for.
And, honestly, you guys, this is the age of the internet; why would I need to get published? Just tell your friends and family, tell strangers, tell anyone about these blogs. I don’t need or want paid to put my thoughts and feelings on a website. Getting published, ask any author, is not the celebration or fulfillment you all think it is. If you write simply to get published…you aren’t a writer. You won’t make it. You won’t last. You and writing will break up before every celebrity couple out there. Seriously.
And if anything gets, well, harsh, or stern, or too serious on here, remember, these are feelings, perceived by my senses. This website is an extension of my therapy, pretty much literally: I needed an outlet, and so this website came to be.
I want it to be about everything that keeps me awake every single night. Be it pain, aesthetic inspiration, frustration, depression, anxiety, spiritual guidance or spiritual inspiration—all of it. All the million of thoughts end on end of one another streaming through my brain and body and spirit and soul and heart every second of every single night since I first felt sick in October of 2004.
I over analyze EVERTHING and I am tired of not getting it out of me. This is me getting the endless analyzing and equivocating and replaying of life, out of myself:
“And there are also the dogs: let’s not forget the dogs, the dogs in their pen who will surely hurtle and snarl their way out if you ever stop writing, because writing is, for some of us, the latch that keeps the door of the pen closed, keeps those crazy ravenous dogs contained.
“Quieting these voices is at least half the battle I fight daily. But this is better than it used to be. It used to be 87 percent. Left to its own devices, my mind spends much of its time having conversations with people who aren’t there. I walk along defending myself to people, or exchanging repartee with them, or rationalizing my behavior, or seducing them with gossip, or pretending I’m on their TV talk show or whatever. I speed run an aging yellow light or don’t come to a full stop, and one nanosecond later am explaining to imaginary cops exactly why I had to do what I did, or insisting that I did not in fact do it.” –Anne Lamott, Bird By Bird
“I am something of a recluse by nature. I am that cordless screwdriver that has to charge for twenty hours to earn ten minutes use. I need that much downtime. I am a terrible daydreamer. I have been since I was a boy. My mind goes walking and playing and skipping. I invent characters, write stories, pretend I am a rock star, pretend I am a legendary poet, pretend I am an astronaut, and there is not control to my mind.” –Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz
“I suspect that he was a child who thought differently than his peers, who may have had serious conversations with grownups, who as a young person, like me, accepted being alone quite a lot. I think this sort of person often becomes either a writer or a career criminal. Throughout my childhood I believed that what I thought about was different from what other kids thought about. It was not necessarily more profound, but there was a struggle going on inside me to find some sort of creative or spiritual or aesthetic way of seeing the world and organizing it in my head.” –Anne Lamott, Bird By Bird
Those quotes are very close to the truth about my mind and how it really works. It is embarrassing to finally admit this, but at least two of my favorite authors are the same exact way. That makes me feel a little less crazy. And a little more like an artist. Not because I strive to be one, but because that is exactly how God made me. I am who He says I am. And so are you.
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