In the past few days, possibly because
I'm studying for an exam in French Literature, I keep coming across these
people whose mental illnesses appear to have played a major part in their creativity
– which is to say, in their identity and their life.
You hear this said about these Van
Gogh types sometimes – they were brilliant, but they were miserable, or their
misery would contribute to and be assuaged by their beautiful creations. It
always seemed a bit off to me, because what was the point of devoting yourself
to art, if it had nothing to do with happiness?
The specific example running through
my mind is of Robert M. Pirsig. After many years of persistent nagging, my
younger brother has finally relented and begun reading his
quasi-autobiographical Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Today he
pointed out, quite rightly, that its protagonist wasn't really very Zen.
Which led me to think that what he
is, actually, is an artist. Even before writing his two books, while he was a
technical writer and university teacher and whatnot; he was an artist simply by
virtue of his wanting to do things properly – critically, non-conventionally –
in an insistence that put him at odds with society. Giving up this struggle,
this criticism, to try and fall in line with convention was what made him bitter,
torn, deadened; engaging in it essentially just made him rejected.
Rejection is unpleasant, and a much
bigger deal than the platitudes would have you think in any case, but I don’t think
it can hold a candle to the experience of being subjected to industrial
processing.
Both experiences count as mental
illness, in principle. If you stray too far and if you suffer too much you're a
whack job, but in both cases your experiences would make fascinating fodder for
aficionados if rendered properly.
William S. Burroughs seems to have
considered his homosexuality and drug-addiction equally parts of this, as
maladaptive and invigorating aspects of his life and personality. One more piece in a long chain of evidence
that seems to suggest that if you want to not suck, it is inevitable that you
get into quite serious conflict with those who do.
Art is an arena, or institution,
where this antagonistic conduct is relatively tolerated; sometimes more or less
encouraged – which may be why those are the weirdos and freaks we remember and
revere, but it's fully possible that the forgotten others, in less obliging
professional circumstances, led tense but fulfilling lives as well.
Sometimes, of course, art doesn't seem
to have ultimately been enough. Van Gogh really seems to have been pretty
comprehensively miserable (do does Cobain, who for some reason I keep thinking
of when I think of Van Gogh); Flaubert, if the introductory note I read about
him can be believed, on top of everything else gone wrong in his life, in the
tyrannical self-discipline as well as the unpleasant subject matter involved in
writing Madame Bovary, made himself so miserable he grew to resent its success.
On the other hand, there are these
Zen monks, and Taoist types, presumably, who claim to be happy through a
different kind of non-conformism. So what is the Zen way to maintain
your motorcycle? It doesn't have to be about calm – because who the fuck is
ever calm anyway? - but if you're doing things properly, I think
you should be able to feel the exultation that comes from being free of
bullshit, even if people around you are calling you names. Or hospitalising
you.
No comments:
Post a Comment