So, I see there have been some viewers and I’m going to go on a limb and assume they are off somewhere in the vast universe just waiting to hear the rest of my ultimate frisbee story.. Since the comments left have thus far been only complimentary I think my assumption is valid even if entirely wrong. So, sweet Mike drives the three of us to some grubby field in north Hollywood, and there is some unusually huge turnout. I’d guess about 30 souls waiting patiently to play ultimate Frisbee. And, they all are wearing their adidas special sport shorts and some shirt that is properly athletic and they look so … shabby. Like the comedians in L.A. But, there not comedians but from my very limited information—they are editors and other things. And, no one knows anyone though they’ve been playing this ultimate Frisbee for longer than 6 months. I just didn’t get it and was grateful to at least look cool with my cords and flip flops while I didn’t get it. Anyone over 30 wearing that adidas long nylony short and the athletic gear shirt just looks wrong unless they are gorgeous. I just was overwhelmed by the absurdity of strangers running around throwing a Frisbee at each other. The manager of my building deserves his own book, much less a blog but suffice it to say he is now a hot shot agent and had a pet tiger as pet while a boy in Puert Rico. He also spoke openly about how sweaty his balls were and I wanted elsewhere so very very badly.
Anyhow, I’m over it. This is my theory on artists and angst. I truly never hear about it before so if it is unoriginal I apologize in advance.
The artist, unlike the non artist, lives to create. God, like the artist, is a creator. So, when an artist stares at a painting in a gallery he feels that his critique of the artist is more “educated,” than the run of the mill gallery goer.
So, he can look at the canvas and approve or he could be filled with alienation (if the work is Popular) or he can be filled with admiration or he could be filled with angst that such a gross piece of shit is in a gallery at all.
Enter God. The creative artist aloft in the universe must stare or gaze or just notice God’s Canvas and so often he will find it not only lacking but vile and grotesque. The artist mourns the lost chances for beauty. There seems even a crime against symmetry in the figure of most humans. How can it be so that the master of all would create a hairlip or piano legs and flappy tits. The list of offenses is endless and painful to re-visualize.
Well, dear reader, that is the gist of this theory. I only can know that since I was a baby I remember marveling and mourning the ubiquity of hideousness of so many humans in a symmetrical and spiritual sense. So if, lets say, I am on the admissions board of an art school and god presented with a portfolio of his prose and poetry(spiritual) and his fine art( symmetry, composition, purpose) I’d be intrigued but ultimately horrified that he had the power and talent and came up with the shit I see.
Clever, no?
Also, the artist unlike the scientist or other exalted character has no real lab or university to find shelter in. The studio doesn't count as a real place of "business." The possibilities are too endless and therefore ripe for neurosis. Whateva. Give someone like the smaller bones spinster 3 exceptional talents and you have a recipe for angst.
If talent reveals itself from a young age, any artistic goal won’t feel realized in any organized institution. And, beginning at 3 in nursery, institutions are organized to lead us … somewhere. The real artist, meanwhile, is marching to a drummer that’s beat is leading him only away. Away where? Endless places. Don’t give them any recognition, or mentorship and they will suffer. The poet, today, is only recognized in corners of academia and I’d bet there are lot of suicides that we’ll never hear of.
I recently read a book about bipolar/mania, and according to this book, "touched by fire" by Kay Redfield; mania has been found to be the most prevalent in poets, poetic writers, and composers. Suicides are by far the highest in poets, or as someone said in the book, “in the rhyming tribe.” Novelists suffer mostly from depression. Visual artists seem spared of the worst of it and though sometimes very depressive or psychotic (van Gogh) they are not as suicidal or that mentally distressed.
I’ve always known that many poets, “lost their mind,” and that writers of any quality are sufferers. But, the idea that composers too suffer very similarly made me have to figure out why.
Why? My opinion. The poet and the composer are obsessed with putting form to chaos. Trying to see patterns in randomness is too heavy a burden on a human brain and like some computer it overheats or plain crashes. The novelist and painter also want to put form to chaos but the novelist's format it less restrictive and the painter doesn't have to use his mental faculties with the same intenity
My brain is now overheating so I’ll leave you with my theory on Atheism.
I believe atheism is an impossibility. Why? Because we all had mothers and fathers and so the idea of our creations is hardwired. We all can’t help but believe, in our own ways, that we were invented and that someone other than a human invented us. Some insist that they are atheists. I think many of those who insist this are convinced that it shows them to be less simpleminded. But, in reality, some of the great minds of our time and other times couldn’t resist believing in a god. I think we all carry some idealized vision of how the world should really be and maybe that is a god.
Okay, now it's time for me to take two excedrins and get to work.
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