The artist’s dilemma is great. I know that some of you folks don’t consider me an artist and that’s okay. I can consider myself anything I want to be. I take a blank screen and make art. To create something out of nothing is an amazing thing. I envy the great painters, sculptors, glass blowers, woodworkers, writers, performance artists, musicians and so on. Being a writer is tough work. Trying to build on everything I have written and have yet to write is a constant heartache.
You may think I write for you, but I write for me and a small number of select individuals who truly understand me. An essayist’s dream is for those individuals to actually understand what he is trying to give over. It is truly rare for someone to understand me — this is mostly because I have never truly given myself over, maybe 30% is known and 70% is left hidden between the lines.
There is a constant itch to make something new, to cross new lines, to blur new lines, to recreate the past creations which I people seem to just throw off as “been there done that” and to constantly defend oneself against the backlash of comments longing for the days of yore – those critical two liners that say “it used to be better” or “you used to be funnier” or whatever other flick of the hand that one who need not know the gut wrenching dilemmas of the writer. Those who do not know the pain of sitting with pen in hand and no words gushing forth from the mind, those who do not understand the beauty of what I seek to imprint into your minds and merely long for the slapstick days of yore. I cannot go back, nor do I wish to go back. Rewriting with new twists is possible, but very unlikely, for it feels cheap and it feels like I have failed as a writer if I cannot keep going beyond the norm — readers and fans be damned.
Damn you all who do not wish to see, wish to read between the lines and understand the irony and the blasphemy and the silent pleas for comprehension that I seek with my pen. Five understanding individuals is better than a thousand who gloss over and merely bicker over the sentences before and after the witty remarks that I have planted within the randomness of my stream of consciousness.
I, like so many writers before me, just want to be understood. I do not wish to be liked, for wishing to be liked means nothing to me if you do not comprehend. If you comprehend and disagree you are doing me a great service by the comprehension itself — do you understand?
I cannot go back and I cannot make more of something which my mind’s wishes not to think of, life changes, writing and interests change, the mind’s ability to create something out of nothing has remained strong, the Lord hath provided with multiple paths to performance — multiple ways in which I can create for others including myself to enjoy.
In the end, it is not only about comprehension, but it is about allowing others to enjoy regardless of their level of understanding. You and I will see completely different things in Chagall or Monet. No one sees the same thing — if so, what good is comprehension if we all see something else? Is it not better to get enjoyment out of said art or creation? Is it not better that someone is looking and thinking and enjoying? Maybe that is the true goal. If there ever was a goal to all the madness in my mind, maybe it was to allow others enjoyment, to allow them to feel my enjoyment at providing for their own enjoyment, because life to me is ultimately about enjoying oneself as much as possible, whether it be through religious fervency, artistic ability, artistic appreciation or passively letting it all slip away under a hallucinatory matrix, as long as the person believes that they are making the most of their time here — is that not life?