Lies We Tell to Children: Inspiration
You only know you had something when it's gone. I'm not talking about girls here, though I could be, given a couple more days of rain for 12 hours and sun for 3. I'm talking about inspiration. Just write, and it will come to you, my parents said.
I have learned, many times, at or around 1 a.m., that this is patently untrue. Especially this week, when I've been trying to type up something for this site in praticular, and finding my bag of tricks more or less empty. There hasn't been much to annoy me or rattle my cage that engenders a conversation in a public setting, so there wasn't much to write about.
But. If you have ever had inspiration, between cans of Red Bull and Jones soda, then you know, as I do, that you have to strike while the iron is hot, and not while it is lukewarm. This is hard to explain to Zach and company, who seem to be able to sit and come up with something without getting worked up and talking about it to whomever will listen. I see something. I get worked up. I write. Only after writing out the ideas in some terrible form, just getting them on the screen, as it were, can I refine them into the grade B garbage you see in front of you.
(As you might imagine, the grade A garbage derived from the garbage mentioned in the last paragraph goes to the campus newspaper.)
A slight biographical note. I have been sick for the last couple weeks, or ever since I returned to the snow belt, and like Jerry from Penny-Arcade: We've long canonized our respective lunacies, believing it is like some artistic sacrament that makes our bizarre endeavor possible. We have relied upon them. I use his words to say that for the most part I am comfortable in my semi-lucid, sickened, occasionally picking up books and vomiting in the trash can before class state, and it is that state, I believe, that gets me in the right mindset to write furiously and engage my "gift", as my professors and family members have put it.
I don't know what I would do if I lost it. I can't write normally, and I jumped off the ship of normal habits years ago. I need you to understand that the last time I got a bunch of guys together we ended up playing Starcraft for hours on end. I am very protective of my anxiety and neuroses, because so far as I can tell, it allows me to write well.
Though this might condemn you to insanity (As if anyone reads this anyway!), guard your neuroses carefully. Know, too, what they take out of you and weigh those two things against each other. I tell the people around me that I can hold it together, when more often than not, I know I can't, because I know that's where my inspiration comes from. If it kills me, I can take solace in the fact that I'm burning out and not fading away.
I was told by my parents sickness and neuroses aren't useful. Just by looking at the works of the painters they have me look at, they knew better.
I have learned, many times, at or around 1 a.m., that this is patently untrue. Especially this week, when I've been trying to type up something for this site in praticular, and finding my bag of tricks more or less empty. There hasn't been much to annoy me or rattle my cage that engenders a conversation in a public setting, so there wasn't much to write about.
But. If you have ever had inspiration, between cans of Red Bull and Jones soda, then you know, as I do, that you have to strike while the iron is hot, and not while it is lukewarm. This is hard to explain to Zach and company, who seem to be able to sit and come up with something without getting worked up and talking about it to whomever will listen. I see something. I get worked up. I write. Only after writing out the ideas in some terrible form, just getting them on the screen, as it were, can I refine them into the grade B garbage you see in front of you.
(As you might imagine, the grade A garbage derived from the garbage mentioned in the last paragraph goes to the campus newspaper.)
A slight biographical note. I have been sick for the last couple weeks, or ever since I returned to the snow belt, and like Jerry from Penny-Arcade: We've long canonized our respective lunacies, believing it is like some artistic sacrament that makes our bizarre endeavor possible. We have relied upon them. I use his words to say that for the most part I am comfortable in my semi-lucid, sickened, occasionally picking up books and vomiting in the trash can before class state, and it is that state, I believe, that gets me in the right mindset to write furiously and engage my "gift", as my professors and family members have put it.
I don't know what I would do if I lost it. I can't write normally, and I jumped off the ship of normal habits years ago. I need you to understand that the last time I got a bunch of guys together we ended up playing Starcraft for hours on end. I am very protective of my anxiety and neuroses, because so far as I can tell, it allows me to write well.
Though this might condemn you to insanity (As if anyone reads this anyway!), guard your neuroses carefully. Know, too, what they take out of you and weigh those two things against each other. I tell the people around me that I can hold it together, when more often than not, I know I can't, because I know that's where my inspiration comes from. If it kills me, I can take solace in the fact that I'm burning out and not fading away.
I was told by my parents sickness and neuroses aren't useful. Just by looking at the works of the painters they have me look at, they knew better.
Labels: insanity, inspiration, Lies we Tell to Children, sickness
posted by James Thomas à Becket | 2:55 PM
3 Comments:
I have to disagree with your thesis here, James. It, and other related arguments especially, have some merit, and it is well stated, but I think there's a serious misconception here.
You are more than the sum of your neuroses, and just because madness and talent tend to go hand in hand doesn't mean that to lessen one is to lessen the other.
You're a good writer, and you will continue to improve, even if you learn to be a little more stable. I would encourage you to do so.
You would probably be better off vomiting less.
As always, though, I'm proud to have you writing with us, and I'm not telling you you shouldn't be angry. The world is full of things worth spitting bile at.
Just keep an eye on your health.
I'll keep a more careful eye on my health. I'm more than the sum of my neuroses, and to suggest anything else would be incorrect.
But.
I've tried to write love poems, and they suck. I've written morose poems, and they're much better.
(I'd make a joke about writing what I know, but it's tasteless.) My health is something I can't afford to ignore, since if there is too much neglect, I physically can't write.
I'll acquiesce, though. I'll find a more precise barometer for my health than okay, sick and probably going to die.
Regarding your comment to Zach: this fails to surprise me. Love poems, far, far more often than not, are awful. I'd suggest that there is more interesting emotional fodder than either love or hate. (I'd rather tattoo my knuckles with "Earl Grey," "lost boys," "sell fish" or "be polite," for example, even though the later would have me constantly answering the question, "What's Bepo?")
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