WARNING: In over 130 blog posts, I don’t believe I have ever
resorted to vulgarity of any kind. However, I find it hard to avoid using a few
vulgarisms on this occasion. Please forgive me if their use offends you and I
will try to keep their use to a bare minimum in the future.
I’ve been around the writing game long enough now to
identify a certain attitude. It is one that is shared with critics of all art
today, one that feels the need to heap scorn upon anyone who attempts a loftier
style or desires to accomplish something more than amuse and distract their
audience. To anyone who does not sufficiently amuse them, to anyone who makes
them uncomfortable and makes them think a little, they use words such as
pompous, pretentious, or arrogant.
I have an answer to such criticism, one which I hope you
won’t find too elitist or arty. Fuck you. You call me pretentious? I call you
intellectual and moral cowards. You are too afraid to attempt what can and
should be done and so you attack others for making the attempt. You masturbate
because you are afraid to procreate. You play at life when you should be living
it.
To artists and audience alike I say to you: demand more! Be
more! We ARE more than what some would make us. We have souls, we have purpose.
Life has meaning!
Artists today, especially when in pursuit of fame and cash,
are unafraid to transgress any moral sensibility but they flee from any
critical thought that might separate them from the safety of the herd or the cash of their potential
customers. They are willing to dream up any sexual perversion, any sick
violence in order to titillate their fans. Money has somehow wormed its way
between artists and their audience when there should be no barriers between us.
This is not a fucking business transaction, this is human communication at its
most basic and honest level.
Be men. Not men as we now describe them, crude, violent and
stupid. Be men in daring to seek the truth and defend truth even when it is
unpopular Be women. Do not indulge incessantly in adolescent fantasies but
instead become the strong intelligent women the world needs. Be human beings
and not pawns in a marketing game. Dare. Get out of the kiddy pool and think
thoughts that make you uncomfortable. Brave putting down in you art your
deepest darkest fears and hopes. Expose your most hidden selves to the light. Dream
a dream that is worth sharing.
The world needs changing but you are too timid to admit you
have the power to make it better. It is up to you, no one else can do your job,
share the perspective that only you have. You are important—nay, vital to this
world, and it’s time you shook off your doubts and realized it.
It is up to you to show the world that ideas can accomplish
what bullets cannot.
Be bold, my friends, be bold. Not bold in expressing
prejudice or hatred, but in expressing new ideas and optimism. Not bold to
shock or offend but bold in order to enlighten and inspire.
A culture whose artists are afraid to push further is a
culture in decline. That is the power you possess as artists, to keep your
culture afloat and moving ahead, to reach new shores and new heights previously
unimagined.
Do not be afraid to fail. Nor should you feel the need to accept
society’s judgment of what success or failure is. Do not try to fit yourself
into the cattle chutes called genres, but instead blaze your own trail, create
what you see and feel, let what is inside of you be what it is meant to be.
You owe it to yourself. You owe it to everyone who has
influenced you, those who gave you a sense of wonder when in your childhood you
picked up a book, gazed at a picture, or were enraptured by a song. And you owe
it to a future that deserves the same as you received, art that speaks to the
heart and the mind without further considerations of any baser motives. This is
life. Art is life. Art is the communication that speaks to those whom you have
never met nor will meet. It is the passing on of beauty and vitality. And it is
in your hands.
No comments:
Post a Comment