Something I said earlier on Facebook. I don't often like things that I say, but I think this one bears repetition. Plus the blog makes it way easier to keep track.
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I
get a certain feeling when I look at work by Van Gogh or listen to work
by Beethoven or Chopin. It's difficult to describe, because it isn't
something we often see anymore.
Hell, it's not something we often see historically either. It's why they hold such value.
Anyone can take beauty and make something beautiful. Anyone can take misery and create something tragic, sometimes even tragically beautiful. It takes something far and away beyond that to take raw suffering and darkness and force from it something unimaginably breathtaking.
It's often overlooked, but it takes a belief - a faith, even - that what you are creating is more important than you are. I say that because such an act will consume you to the very core...that's the nature of the beast, isn't it?
But the result is a thing unique, a thing that by itself makes the world brighter for anyone equipped to perceive it.
The word, which falls short, is triumph. In that moment of perception you share simultaneously the knowledge of whichever creator's darkness and the reality of their victory over it.
And in that moment your own darkness becomes lesser for having been exposed to the truth of that perception.
I don't care if you get the same feeling from Beethoven and Van Gogh or from Lady Gaga and Andy Warhol or if you are driven to create your own work to feel it. While I'd argue that certain elements make it easier to find, the medium is irrelevant. Find your truth and cling to it and don't ever, ever let anyone take it from you.
Hell, it's not something we often see historically either. It's why they hold such value.
Anyone can take beauty and make something beautiful. Anyone can take misery and create something tragic, sometimes even tragically beautiful. It takes something far and away beyond that to take raw suffering and darkness and force from it something unimaginably breathtaking.
It's often overlooked, but it takes a belief - a faith, even - that what you are creating is more important than you are. I say that because such an act will consume you to the very core...that's the nature of the beast, isn't it?
But the result is a thing unique, a thing that by itself makes the world brighter for anyone equipped to perceive it.
The word, which falls short, is triumph. In that moment of perception you share simultaneously the knowledge of whichever creator's darkness and the reality of their victory over it.
And in that moment your own darkness becomes lesser for having been exposed to the truth of that perception.
I don't care if you get the same feeling from Beethoven and Van Gogh or from Lady Gaga and Andy Warhol or if you are driven to create your own work to feel it. While I'd argue that certain elements make it easier to find, the medium is irrelevant. Find your truth and cling to it and don't ever, ever let anyone take it from you.
