Issues & Personal 20 Apr 2008 05:44 pm
Loss of Voice 
What do we actually aim for?
In life, in work, in our inspirations, our… end products? Our interactions, our contacts, our friendships, our helping and our longing?
Depending on your occupation, your passions or your likings the answer to everyone of those parts of a question can be varied and different… and ultimately meaningless to anybody else than yourself.
Of course we convince ourselves that this is not a basic truth and that whatever we’re doing ultimately holds some kind of sense, use or meaning for people around us, society or the greater good. Sand in your eyes, my friends…
This becomes a most apparently fact when whatever you are doing and whatever sense you convey upon it, is not met, acknowledged or even picked up upon by the people you aimed it at in the first place.
I’d have some problems to call myself a poet or even a writer (even a philosopher for that matter) outside of any reference of convenience for the action that I am doing at the moment. It’s linked to the conflictual relation I entertain with my passions and whatever I create. For reasons of simplicity however, let’s say I’m a poet.
As such I aim at people’s emotions. Like, dislike, love, hate, accept, concurring, disagreeing etc. are all emotions I try to bring up. The picture of the reader’s soul as a violin on which you try to strike the right cord or at least a certain cord springs to mind.
From that follows as a matter of logic that if if I don’t manage to strike that cord, I failed the ultimate goal. If poetry cannot bring out emotion big or small, then it’s lukewarm, dispassionate… and in the end meaningless.
It’s the worst thing that can happen to anything artistic is being met with indifference.
For the poet or the writer, the actor or the painter, it’s the end of all things.
In the end, when all is said and done, and if we are not lying in our own pocket, then it shouldn’t matter. If we are right in stating that ultimately we do it for art’s purpose, for some hgiher meaning, then the appreciation of anybody around us should not matter one single second.
And yet it does, doesn’t it?
Appreciation or at least reaction is just one of those things the human being depends on. Not because we’re weak, or fishing for compliments to bolster our own being.
But because we’re ultimately social beings. A reaction to you and your being and the things you put out there, is a way of simply stating ‘I see you and hear you’, add to that the ‘I don’t agree’ or the ‘I love it’ and there you have the whole spectrum of human interaction. It’s part of who we are.
So let’s stop kidding ourselves and simply confess that the reaction does matter.
If there is no reaction to be had, the world would be governed by silence.
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on 20 Apr 2008 at 18:27 1.Dave said …
Well, time for me to react.
You (the you to whom I speak knows who he or she is) are right, you’re absolutely right. However, I think that something that shouldn’t be forgotten is that everything IS personal, IS relative. What garners a complex, debating reaction from one person may just earn polite applause of approval from another person.
If something you put your heart into, if something you spend time creating, doesn’t gain a reaction from your audience, then maybe it’s the wrong audience for that particular piece. It doesn’t mean they don’t like it - they do, most likely, and I certainly did - but it means that it isn’t completely relative to them.
Speaking as a Theatrical artist, a theatre practitioner (which is ultimately what I define myself as - something more all-encompassing than just an actor), and, really, a theatre critic (Because anyone who loves it like I do is one), I see plays that make me think “That’s very well done. Well directed, good writing, great acting, brilliant design” and I appreciate it. I like it, I really do. There is no lack of respect for the work at all. But I might not have anything particular to say about it. (Often, when this happens, I find myself in the unfortunate position of talking to the Director and/or the Star afterwards, being asked my opinion. In such cases, I’ll speak honestly, but will talk of ‘great timing’ and ‘good stage imagery’ and ‘brilliant set design’ and ‘intelligent use of lighting’. Genuine beliefs by me, of course, but not necessarily existential or deep and meaning as some of my responses to plays) There are other plays I see which make me want to cry, or draw out nostalgic responses, or genuinely make me reconsider my opinions on something, and affect me on a life-changing level, and yet they might NOT be as well designed or directed. They are just more relevant to me.
Even the great Bill Shakespeare, whom many of you know that I love more than any other artist in the history of the world, does not garner such deep and meaningfuls from me with all his plays. Hamlet, with his reflective thought and his philosophising, his depth and his struggle with, what is essentially, doing the right thing, speaks to me on such levels. I am not like him, I do not suffer from indecisiveness as he does, nor do I hold such a bleak outlook on the world – in fact, what he says with irony I myself say with genuine conviction: “What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god!”
Yet he speaks to me. More than, say, Romeo, who in some regards is seemingly more like me – romantic, idealistic, impulsive. Perhaps it is because he says nothing that I have not already decided myself. Or perhaps he is just too fickle and too shallow for my liking. Or perhaps the likeness between us is superficial at best, and the depths we hold are far separate. I don’t know.
That is not to say I do not appreciate the artistry of a production of Romeo and Juliet any less than I do a production of Hamlet. I have, of occasion, seen Romeos that have been brilliant, and (depressingly all to often) I have seen Hamlets that have been poor to the point of criminality – if it’s not a crime to so horribly butcher such a great play, it should be. Neither case will necessarily send me off onto a 700 word reflection on the play for no other reason than it is sitting inside me burning to be said. Yet the perfectly pitched, heartfelt thoughts of someone who, in a particular regard, asks me something that I feel compelled to reply to, might gain just that. They could say little more than a paragraph, or a sentence, and it might be enough to make me want, nay need, to answer.
In fact, that is what garnered this particular note. A reply. Someone, somewhere, said something that made me reflect on all this quite deeply. That’s not to say that he or she always garners such a response (although it should be noted that I almost always appreciate, and am genuinely impressed by, the artistry and the clarity and the meaning that this person brings to what he or she says), but that this particular thought of his or hers did so, maybe more so than his or her previous thoughts did. I found relevance and depth here where as the previous thought appealed to someone else more than I.
Does this make sense? I hope so.
Much love to all.
Dave.
on 20 Apr 2008 at 18:51 2.yseult said …
First off… thank you. For an earnest reply, and the appreciation behind it.
It does make perfect sense. Which is evident since you’re not one to simply banter on without sense or meaning.
In the end it boils all down to one thing and you’re making this very apparent in your reaction: what does the professional mind think and how does the soul react.
Two things in my heart completely separate and not unlike Faust’s profound dilemma: “Two souls, alas, beat in my chest…”
Two souls, two characters even that according to what is asked of me or how strong the emotion is, are battling their way out of my brain and guts onto the page or out of my mouth.
Your appreciation of artistry is the one of an actor. A professional.
I am no professional poet. I am a philosopher. (Of course always within the limitations of use of this word stated above.)
As such I find myself in enough situations where I react exactly like you do. Where I will remain intrepid in my appreciation, finding something technical to point out in a paper, an article or book. Simply because I can’t bring my mind to either be annoyed enough to tickle a heated discussion out of the author or charmed enough to point out the strengths.
In these situations one needs to take on what you’d call a ‘meta-level’ in which you consider the ouevre or the argument or whatever you are discussing and reacting to as a whole and analyse it. Such a meta stance is needed in order to objectify whatever you’re dealing with.
Objectifying always means stripping it of any personally tainted reaction or… feeling that goes with it. Working in philosophy, this means that the better I can objectify something for my reasoning, the better my reasoning will get and the more easier it is accepted as such. Personal appreciation taints any scientific appreciation. As a professional in that field, I cannot have my personal stance enter my thought.
As a poet however it is exactly this personal, emotional reaction that I am aiming for.
Two personalities living in me and fighting it out. Which ever wins, is anybody’s guess…
on 20 Apr 2008 at 19:16 3.Joel said …
Appreciation, feedback, and in some sense salary (which can be understood as a form of appreciation) are important questions in one’s life. Do we, or do we not need them ? Not only in our daily work, but also in our hobbies ?
Let’s redress the perspective a little not to get lost and maybe reformulate the point, without entering into the salary problem: is appreciation or feedback important in the activity in which we put our expectations (sometimes it is work, sometimes not – we can work only for a salary, without much passion, and invest our real self into hobbies) ?
For me, the answer is obviously yes and no… (I’m not saying this because I am a non-conflictual person).
No, because we must be able to do what is important for us not even for the glory of what we are doing (art for art) but for us to become more human, more the human being we want to be, we have to be. And that doesn’t need appreciation nor feedback. I’m not saying that this is easy: working in the shadow, in secret, means that we will not be praised for what we do… and that’s just an asceticism for the soul (btw it is seen as a good training by religious orders to learn to let his own glorification in the wardrobe).
Yes, because we often need something to get on, further… and often it is quite difficult to judged by ourselves if we are heading in a good direction. Appreciation and feedback can consolidate us in our daily life, or show us that we are heading in a wrong direction. In that sense it is highly needed.
I think the solution is in a good balance of the two… we are neither stars nor monks (most of us anyway).
Concerning the way we are giving appreciation or feedback (to “answer” Dave’s comment)… I think that the only real appreciation is the one we are giving with our heart, not with our head. Let me explain: I can see in a movie, in a play or anything else what is well done, written, etc. and I can judge it and give it a grade. But if you have not been moved by it… something is somehow lost. Maybe I could use Shakespeare and a movie to explain this (by the way my favourite S. play is King Lear): Dead Poets Society; we can use a scale to measure the greatness of a writer (according to the meaning and the form for example) and make a good appreciation of him, but it is worthless without this little existential sparkle that moves your heart.
I think I understand what B. was saying: if poetry moves your heart, you will not be able to restrain yourself and you will say something; if you are not giving any feedback, it is in fact because you weren’t really moved by it (but could have, in a brainy manner, liked the poem), so why continue to write?
I may feel different, and propose another solution: I think that many people are sometimes really moved by something, but simply cannot say it: the sensation is too much overwhelming, they are ashamed, felling inadequate, or maybe they just can find the words. The fact that one is not having feedback doesn’t mean he/she is not appreciated…
But I know the feeling… sometimes, it is hard to find your way in the dark.