Two Books

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A photo posted by Terra Leigh Bell (@leighandharriet) on Aug 8, 2014 at 6:28pm PDT

            Two books, very different.  Though both were crafted replies to other writers.
            The first — first in chronology as well as psychic weight — is Beltenebros, or the Beautiful Obscure.  This is my first book of poetry, and it was released by Seattle's Babel/Salvage at the end of August.  Beltenebros is a (short) book-length poem.  It was written in direct response to Cervantes' Don Quixote de la Mancha; I think of it as sort of "talking back" (albeit with a great deal of affection) to the novel(s).*

The book finally got finished! #papercraft #paperart #handmadebooks

A photo posted by Terra Leigh Bell (@leighandharriet) on Nov 11, 2014 at 9:10pm PST

            The second, though it got finished around the same time, is quite different.  It is a very small, handmade object.  Each page contains "memorabilia" from either Lemuel Gulliver's journeys in Jonathan Swift's 18th-century novel, or from my own journeys, or some of each.  It took much longer than I'd expected, but I have to say that I'm pleasantly surprised by how it turned out.  There are a couple of pictures in this post, but if you click through to my Instagram account, you can find images of all the pages.

                    _______________________________________________________


            I wish I could remember more clearly.  Like most children, I did various art projects when I was little.  And I'm sure that, also like other children, some of my experiments prompted my mother and other grown-ups to say, with a mix of pride and puzzlement, "What is it?"
            I wish I could remember exactly how I felt about that question.  I suspect it doesn't bother kids as much as most adults worry it does.  I vaguely remember feeling pleasure.  Not because of their interest, but because, in realizing the adult didn't recognize what my picture was an image of, I could tell them whatever I wanted.  A dog could suddenly be claimed as a giraffe.  A tree could become a boat.
            I like the adult version much less.  Now people say, "What is it about?"
            In the last few months, each time I have told a person that my first book was published, or that I made a handmade book/art-ish object, I have heard the question, "What is it about?"
            I can think of two appropriate responses.  I could launch into a long analysis of all of the themes and shapes and recurring images and all the layered meanings in Beltenebros.  I could talk about memory and materialism and my highly clichéd but nonetheless thriving romance with the sea in the Gulliver's Travels book.  That's one way of responding that seems as least reasonable.
            Or I could shrug my shoulders and say, "I have no idea."  This seems most honest.
            But I am just as socially assimilated as the next schmuck, so I politely say something like, "It's an homage to Don Quixote/Gulliver's Travels."  Blatant relief sweeps across their face as they realize A) it's not sexual, and B) the fact that it is "about" books they haven't read lets them off the hook from having to feign interest.  They (equally politely) reply, "Oh, I haven't read it."

#papercraft #paperart #handmadebooks

A photo posted by Terra Leigh Bell (@leighandharriet) on Nov 11, 2014 at 9:15pm PST

            The reason I think all of this matters is simple:  I caught myself.  I caught myself being more proud of having had Beltenebros published than I was of finishing the handmade book.  And if I dig under that pride a bit, I realize that my pride in having a book published stems from a sense of validation.  Having someone — anyone — choose your poem or novel or essay collection to send off to a printer's and slap an ISBN on it feels like "someone" — that conveniently vague notion of the rational capitalist at the back of everything — has put their stamp of approval on my work.  Receiving that stamp of approval permits others to grant theirs as well.
            But...really???  Have you seen some of the  books to get published recently?  I know I'm showing some of my elitist colors here, but "getting published" (and the passivity of that phrase should probably bug you) says nothing of the artistic value of a, um...book.  What it tells you is something about its capitalist value; that Babel/Salvage and many, many publishing houses like it are so clearly labors of love, doesn't change that fact.
            For the time being, I'm not going after this so much as an attack on capitalism "out there," so to speak, as I am concerned about the ways capitalism and consumerism have clearly shaped my own mind.  I care deeply about human creativity, and any ideology that fucks with the underlying structures of our individual minds and the consciousness of our larger societies to such an extent that we value the approval of the market more highly than our own inner compass should disturb me.  It should disturb me often enough to actually do something about it.  Maybe I could start with being proud of having written the damned thing.

                    _______________________________________________________


            As I mentioned in my last post, the move to Portland has been tumultuous, and I can't currently locate my copy of Don Q.  But in the next couple of weeks I should be able to put up a couple of posts that show some of what I did in working with Cervantes' text.  If you're curious, you can search for "quixote" in the upper left-hand corner to see a couple of short excerpts, as well as some of my thoughts on the novel and my process in general.
            As always, feel free to comment, and thanks for the patience in my transition to Portlandia!



* Today if you go to your local bookstore (my favorites being Elliott Bay in Seattle and Portland's Powell's on Hawthorne), you will find the single book Don Quixote de la Mancha.  I only think it worth mentioning that it was actually two separate books written by Cervantes because the two are quite different, and writing the second book probably contributed to Cervantes' decline in health.  He worked his ass off to get the book out partially because so many copycats had published spurious second volumes to his original, and he wanted to set the records straight.

5 Options for Artists that Aren't Really

Lists are popular.
“10 Best Pick-Up Lines Ever!”
“8 Reasons Your Marriage is Already Failing!”
“5 Ways Parents Can Stop Insulting their Childless Friends!”
I am super into being popular, so I thought I’d create a list, too.  Well, actually, it’s just to get some things off my chest.  I am working on a post on vocation and profession, and I kept getting bogged down responding to all of the old men who, over the course of my life, have felt it incumbent upon them to offer me unsolicited life advice.  Honestly, though, these things still get said, both to me and to some of my artist friends.  Typically in a much more well-meaning way than they used to be offered, but without exception they come from folks who are not artists themselves.
So in the interests of clearing my throat before I get to my post on vocation, and because these points bring up REALLY important issues around capitalism, here are my 

5 Things Non-Artists Need to Stop Saying to Artists

1. Oh, you’re a poet!  Have you thought about being a professional writer?  Like, advertising copy, or journalism, or something?

So I’ve used poetry and writing as my examples, but the same goes for all art forms:  an actor doing TV commercials; a musician playing for a recording studio; a painter doing video game illustration.  The thing non-artists do not seem to get is that your passion, and the skill you acquire expressing that passion, are two separate things.  Using the skill you’ve acquired does not satisfy the passion.  Not one tiny bit.  If I do journalism — and I have, as it so happens — it is no closer to writing poetry or my own essays than is cleaning toilets (which I have also done, and found far easier on my creative side than the supposed creativity of paid writing).
Also, there’s money in journalism?  Are you fucking kidding me?

2. There are jobs for artists.  You could be a college professor!  (Or any type of teacher.  Acting, painting, photography, composition, etc.)

Actually, now that I think of it, this one has a similar problem to #1.  Namely, teaching is a completely different job.  It is not satisfying to creative urges to teach artistic skills when what you want to be doing is painting giant abstracted oil paintings inspired by Victorian novels.
Also — and this is important to the quality of our art, folks — as a professor, I would spend over half my time reading poetry written by 18- to 22-year-olds.  I know what I wrote between the ages of 18 and 22.  I promise you:  reading it would not make you a good artist, of any stripe.  So professors are forced into filling their heads with incredibly heartfelt drivel.
For another thing, in order to get a job at the college level, you have to be willing to move pretty much anywhere in the country.  So, you know, just don’t fall in love with anyone or ever, ever want to settle down and have a family.  (Seriously on this one.  I’ve known people who speak multiple languages, who’ve been moving around the country or the world for over ten years, trying to get tenure.)  Also, going along with that one, 76.4%.  That’s the percentage of professors, across all institutional types, that are adjunct and not tenured or tenure-track.  That means no guarantee of a job next year, and most likely no benefits, and now (and where are those insane tuitions going??!!) most are reported by a recent study to be living below the poverty line.
And finally…  There are no jobs!  Not even crappy ones in the middle of nowhere!  Our parents’ generation is holding onto their tenured jobs for dear life, and there has been such a massive explosion of 30- and 40-somethings with graduate degrees in the humanities that some of my professor friends have told me they are seeing upwards of 100 to 300 applications for every ONE job that comes available.

3. You're making excuses.  There are people out there living their dream.  You could be one of them!  You just gotta be committed!

You wanna know my dream?  It’s so, so simple:  permanent American expat, traveling from one gorgeous, fascinating place to another (Paris!  Lagos!  Kuala Lumpur!  Istanbul!), spending my days writing poetry and essays, painting with media I don't even know the names of, and my nights drinking with other fabulous expats and going to operas, ballets, musical performances, and art openings, and sleeping with so many gorgeous men I finally lose count in a blissed-out, orgasmic haze.  That’s all!  And you know what, the non-artists are right about one thing.  If I was more committed — say, committed enough to marry some rich prick who wanted a tall, blonde trophy — I could totally finance my dream.  So why am I so lazy?

4. Well, but look at [insert famous person with buckets of money]!  He/she certainly seems to have figured it out.

Okay, just for clarity’s sake:  Rick Steves is not an artist.  Neither is Heather Graham.  Neither is Mandy Moore, nor Dan Brown, nor Thomas Kinkade.  Neither are a hell of a lot of other people that Wikipedia will happily label “writer,” “actor,” or “artist.”  They are entertainers.  Pure and simple.  They make crap, so we can all stop thinking for a few minutes.  Nothing against not thinking.  I’m a regular meditator.  It’s just, if you’re going to try to turn your brain off, don’t call it art. Now, that being said, there are artists, across all disciplines, who to all appearances support themselves financially by making wicked art.  Tilda Swinton is a goddess.  Rose Wylie.  Philip Glass.  Arvo Pärt (be still my heart).  Lupita Nyong’o.  Michelle Ndegeocello.  Adrienne Rich.  Anna Netrebko (*sigh*).  Lang Lang.  They are out there.  But here’s the thing:  most had money at their back, and if not money, artistic parents.  No American ever wants to admit this to themselves, but the pulling-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps myth is largely that.  And for the one in a billion artists who do manage to do that?  Can you not tell that I am far too much of a pessimist to be that one? Did you read the above article I linked to? Read it.

5. (In response to an artist voicing concern over balancing art with marriage and kids.)  Sure you can have it all!  Lots of artists have homes and families!

I saved this one for last because this is tough for me to address.  Not because I have a stance against it.  Lots of talented artists do purchase homes and have transportation and get married (and stay married!) and have kids who don’t hate them or kill people.  It’s not that it’s technically impossible.  It’s tough because how to balance art-making with family life is a legitimate problem for a lot of people. It's a question of priorities and sacrifice, and I find that generally, non-artists whip this one out way too casually.
When you have a child, you understand responsibility in a whole new way.  Your very identity gets changed.  But the problem is, it probably won’t be 100% changed.  So an artist may suddenly see their old, artistically active self as selfish and focused on petty things, and simultaneously resent their children for keeping them from their old selves.  As a woman, I tend to hear more about this from the perspective of moms rather than dads, but I can tell you:  there are some moms out there who both desperately want to hold their babies, and desperately want to throw them across the room and run off to somewhere, anywhere, where they can be their artist selves again.  Somewhere they can not be a mother anymore.
These are not “bad women.”  They are not necessarily bad mothers.  Any responsible adult can and should figure out how to deal with their own disappointment once they’ve brought a child into this world, and buck the fuck up.  Most (that I have seen, anyway) do just that.  But at what cost?  How many ways can a human be split?  And is it such a great thing?
  The major advantage I see to encouraging everyone to do everything is productivity.  Yes, my life would look much more impressive if I published books, made art, studied philosophy, and bought a house and had babies.  So?  Why the obsession with production?  Oh!  Right!  Capitalism!  I always forget.  Right, totally need to get on board with capitalism, and its fixation on making more and more, so we can consume more and more.  Return to Go.
And this is the meat of the matter.  Americans want to believe the aforementioned pieces of advice can work because we really, REALLY want to believe that capitalism can be done in such a way that it doesn’t hopelessly contort each and every soul it touches.  I am showing my so-far-left-I-don’t-know-where-the-leftists-went colors here, but yes, capitalism distorts and taints everything.  Everything.  And everyone.  This is why Beyoncé — whom I instinctively want to fall down and worship — is still a problem.  This is why we should never, ever indulge in regretful surprise when we hear what the pace and demands of capitalism do to creators (click here for one example out of thousands).  Americans want to believe that it is possible to be the most authentic version of themselves possible, within this system.  I assert that it is not.  It is not possible.I speak mainly as a poet here, but there is no way to slice the cake that doesn’t hurt me and my creativity.  The solution I have arrived at — and I make no claims that this is the best solution, only that it is no worse than any of the others — is to protect the space my creative urges come from as much as possible.  For me, this means never, ever placing responsibility for things like food and shelter on their very fragile shoulders.  (Huh.  My creative urges ended up with shoulders.  Metaphors are weird.)
I could go further and get all Žižekian, but as I mentioned earlier, this is mostly a throat-clearing exercise.  Of course, there are probably at least five more silly pieces of advice I could come up with, but these are the main ones that continue to re-assert themselves.  And there are real potential pitfalls to the option I’ve chosen.  For one thing, I think it’s awfully easy for folks like me who choose to (attempt to) keep their art and money as far from one another as possible to get awfully self-righteous (a particular talent of mine). We can fool ourselves into believing that somehow we manage to accomplish what everyone else fails at; namely, that we somehow stay free from capitalism’s dirty fingers.  We do not.  Also, there’s a scary psychological potential here, which is that if not one dime ever comes to me via my art, given that I have a psyche shaped by the belief that money is the primary marker of value, it’s often (read:  always) difficult to remember that I am in fact an artist. This one hurts, and it's a constant problem for me, but again, that's part of my point: there isn't a solution within capitalism. Which means that the solution is... (Raises eyebrows...) Yes...???

Gestation

            Ever since I was around 18 to 20 years old — that is, ever since I consciously committed to being a writer, since I began to conceive of writing as a craft I could hone, and not just an outlet for obsessing over sex and convoluted theological questions — I have had a deep fear seeded in my mind.  I have worried about whether or not the inspiration would suddenly, one day, dry up.
            This isn't terribly unique.  Like a lot of artistically and intellectually inclined teenagers, I was miserable.  I had few friends in high school, and I appeared to terrify boys (emotionally fragile, abnormally tall women are much more popular later in life).  I had little self-confidence and — possibly more importantly — I lacked the knowledge of how to work the system of college applications and scholarships, so I didn't even fit in with the nerdy overachievers.  By and large, my peers rejected me and, as such is a very good recipe for a self-destruction I was trying desperately to avoid, I fought back with a well-known weapon:  "The problem is that I'm so unique and different.  It's because I'm a poet.  No one gets me.  They're just too boring and normal."
            All well and good.  Except...
            I'd never asked to be a poet, and a poem had never, ever come when I'd asked it to.  Inspiration struck, whenever it chose.  And if it was, as I always experienced it, a cluster of words, images, and sensations that arrived of their own accord, it seemed plausible they could just stop coming of their own accord.
            Fast-forward ten years.  Ten years during which I sometimes wrote with passion and commitment, but mostly, um, not.  Mostly, I wondered whether I was any good, and defended my choices to every gray-haired dude who got a fucking CD or latte from me and thought I needed a talking-to about growing up and getting ahold of some money so I could do the all-important/inevitable HAVE A FAMILY.  It sucked.  I was in pain, and on edge.  Because contrary to what many people think, a young woman who wants to make art instead of babies will not be consoled by children.  She will be bitter, and resent the helpless creatures she brought into the world just to feel like a not-crazy-person.
            So I was not inspired, and I was angry.  Mostly at myself.  Nothing was happening.  I wrote two decent poems over the space of four years, and I was a wreck.
            Unfortunately, an overly anxious sense of imminent personal failure doesn't encourage good creative work.  Though God knows I've tried to make it work that way.  I had always scorned self-helpy, warm-fuzzy approaches.  And with some justification:  such things hadn't been necessary to making me a writer, so why now?  Then, when I came across Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way at Elliott Bay, people I did not consider Artists with a capital "A" had spoken so highly of it to me, I was dubious.
            But I was also desperate, and had begun to notice that my method — sit down at the desk at the scheduled time, insist that the poems show up, and then shred every vague notion I had before even bothering to write it down — well...did I mention only two poems in four years?
            My obsession with scheduling and productivity, combined with a pretty violent perfectionism, had failed.  So really, Cameron's book seemed to be, at the very worst, a waste of time.  At best, maybe a slight improvement.

            The twelfth week of The Artist's Way is called "Recovering a Sense of Faith."  Now, caveat:  that "faith" makes me squeamish.  Cameron uses it in the same foggily dangerous way most folks do these days; which is to say, it's code for "stop thinking and believe what I'm telling you."  But she discusses faith so she can get to talking about mystery.  On the subject of mystery, she says this:

"Creativity — like human life itself — begins in darkness.  We need to acknowledge this.  All too often, we think only in terms of light:  'And then the lightbulb went on and I got it!'  It is true that insights may come to us as flashes.  It is true that some of these flashes may be blinding.  It is, however, also true that such bright ideas are preceded by a gestation period that is interior, murky, and completely necessary" (Cameron, 194).

            I can think of at least two ways of interpreting a dark time in creative work.  One could look at a dark period as one where little excites the maker — nothing too thrilling is emerging from the æther — but the writer/artist/creator continues to arrive at the desk/table/easel/whatever and dabble.  This is a time-honored approach, and I definitely don't mean to insult it.  The only limitation is that someone will always have to do some kind of filtering, and this approach will most likely mean the filtering will be done by the reader(s).  Mary Oliver — who has turned out some supremely gorgeous and deeply meaningful poems — seems to operate according to this method.  Also William Yeats and Ted what's-his-face (Sylvia Plath's husband, who I am assured was a Great Poet).  My greatest aversion to it is that reading through a lot of mediocrity doesn't increase one's faith that the truly brilliant pieces really are as brilliant as you think.  One of its greatest strengths, however, lies in the openness it affords the writer.  He or she makes a commitment, follows through, and probably remains fully aware of the fact that the majority of art will not be masterpieces.  He or she also, presumably, chooses to not be deterred by such concerns.  In other words, there's a lot of sanity available in this approach.
            Another way of looking at dark periods is, admittedly, more melodramatic.  Also, I vaguely feel, more European (though God knows no one could get Voltaire to shut up).  It involves simply not working — not one tiny bit — through an uninspired time.  No poems, no sculptures, no music, no nothin'.  Paul Valéry and T.S. Eliot worked this way, as did Rimbaud.  Er, except that Arthur Rimbaud just quit writing altogether after realizing that writing some of the most important poetry of the 19th century had left him miserable.  So, possibly a shitty example.  Or possibly not if you take seriously the notion that there isn't any point in making art if it isn't inspired.  Coming from this perspective, as I tend to, there is one great advantage, and one heartbreaking disadvantage.  On the plus side, you get the self-righteous satisfaction of thinking that your consistently productive and hardworking compatriots are mostly trying to recapture the inspiration that got them into art-making int he first place, to no avail.*  On the down side, you spend extensive periods doing fuckall, and this is where Cameron's warm fuzzies get it wrong.  Because yes, you really can not do art again.  You might be able to do creative work — anything from crafting to happy doodling to genuinely creative parenting — but the head-swimming sensations of inspiration that get many of is into art-making often don't persist into adulthood and responsibility-hood.
            If it isn't obvious from what I've said above, I have begun to tend towards the latter approach.  Or rather, I now aim for the latter approach.  The former — doing the work when I promised myself I'd do the work, and waiting for a giddy, fluttering heart be damned — didn't actually result in much sanity for me.  Honestly, I was probably doing it wrong.  But I don't think my personality will let me get it right — I'm too stuck up to be able to "just do the work" and let it be what it is — so I'm going for downtimes.
            One final thought on the benefits of waiting:  if a person can make the room later in life, one can simply not create at all until the space and resources are available.  A number of very talented writers did highly uncreative things before starting to write their own work.  I'm thinking of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and George Eliot, though I'm sure there are examples in other creative fields.  Craft is a real skill, and I don't mean to imply that someone can just pick up their tool of choice whenever they feel like it and succeed brilliantly.  But I do mean to imply that breaks in creative work do not inexorably lead to never working again.

            But what I hope that I would take away from the various experiences I've had with creative work, as well as what I've read/observed from other artistic types — and yes, also from what I learned from two times through The Artist's Way — is that we are all waiting on something that remains out of our control.  Thankfully, "waiting on" someone or something means a couple of different things.  I can take it to mean what I've experienced, which is that my creative work flows best when I simply wait for inspiration to arrive.  But one can also wait on a person the way a lady-in-waiting or a personal butler used to attend to a woman or man.  One can attend to one's creativity.  No decent lady-in-waiting would do what I do, waiting around for my lady to conk me over the head and insist I pay attention.  A good attendant just hangs around and does the day-in and day-out work they've committed to.  Every once in awhile, the lady will charm and delight.  Most of the time she'll ignore the attendant's very existence, and from time to time she'll be a bitch and give you raw beans to eat because she thinks your pathetic dependence upon her is funny.

            This is my last post on Cameron's Artist's Way.  The process of writing these twelve essays has helped me to figure out what's worth keeping, and what's not.  Several times I've felt guilty, because my thoughts on certain chapters have been more critical than in praise of — in particular, chapters two and three — and what I've said in this post mostly serves to develop earlier thoughts.  But thinking through Cameron's process, and openly dissecting the bits I find silly or useless, has also helped me to clarify which parts were genuinely helpful, and worth carrying forward.
            It also just so happens that I've quit one of my jobs in order to make room for creative work.  I've been sort of painfully interested in a few projects that I can only dip my toes into with a 40-hour-per-week schedule, and so I've opted to chance financial ruin.  Only joking.  (Sort of.)  I've also quit the one job in order to make room for doula studies and work, so fingers crossed that the universe wasn't promising me chocolate cake, and is about to deliver raw beans.
            Hopefully some of the better lessons will bear fruit in the future, and I REALLY hope that some folks have found these posts useful.  As always, feel free to share your thoughts with me, either in the comments section here, or in the real world.  You can also find me on Facebook and Twitter, where I mostly repost all the articles I read that make me wish I'd been born a boy.  *sigh*

            Well, cheerio!!



*Hey, don't knock it; self-satisfied gloating fuels a hell of a lot of artists.

Did you know your brain is a part of your body??!!!

            Thoughts on Chapter 11 of The Artist's Way.  Part eleven of twelve on creativity.

            I hadn't planned on lining this up with Thanksgiving weekend, but on reviewing Chapter 11 of The Artist's Way, I was reminded of the fact that Cameron took on the subject of exercise specifically, and the body more generally.

            Artists and intellectuals seem to almost make it a point of pride that they don't give a shit about their bodies.  We drink a lot, eat out constantly, and then get all high-horsey about popular culture's worship of sports celebrities and skinniness and six-pack abs.  Though I quit, smoking (both cigarettes and marijuana) is still a big thing for lots of my artsy friends.  And here we live, in the sickeningly privileged U.S.A., where we apparently still think it's okay to binge on tons of meat, dairy, white flour, processed sugar, and beer to celebrate...uh, "Thanks."

            Artists and intellectuals never seem to mind aligning their own values with popular culture when it would make them feel deprived to do otherwise.  Overeat when that's fun and convenient, and then mock the women and moms going for jogs around Green Lake in their Lululemon gear.*  'Cause nothing would suck more than using all those excess calories.

            On the one hand, I get it.  I have made very intentional commitments to myself in terms of what practices and causes I feel it is worth investing myself in.  I put money towards them, I spend time and energy on the things I'm passionate about, I oppose the evils I can in those specific areas, and then I, like 99% of the people I know, get on with my life and effectively put blinders on to the stuff that falls outside of the scope I've chosen for myself.  But I chose that scope for a reason:  I can only be effective in so many spheres of life.  I only have so much me to go around.  I cannot work a job, hang out with friends, have a boyfriend, read a ton, participate in the dialogues I care about online and in life, participate in food/animal rights protests, political action, and fundraising, write poems, write blog posts, sing in a choir, be a vestry member at my church, go to the freaking church, schedule introvert-escape time with my cat and Monty Python, AND exercise regularly and eat well and occasionally sleep, and do any of it particularly well.  Even writing that out is sort of terrifying, because as of right now I am trying to do all of those things.

            So maybe artists and intellectuals would claim they are trying to pick their foci.  They want to ensure they can do things, and do them well, and many of us didn't participate in sports when we were younger, so maybe getting outside and going for a run, or deciding to eat something more vegetable-based than meat-based, just feels foreign and like a lot of extra time and effort.  And don't get me wrong:  it is a lot of extra effort.  If anyone ever cheerily says something like "it's just so easy to eat really healthy and you can totally just squeeze in a little brisk walk here and there and that's plenty!", they're lying.  For dinner tonight, I'd like a burger, please.  The kale and sweet potato will take infinitely longer to prepare.  Also, when my writing time gets squeezed, the idea of going to a yoga class or swimming sounds counterproductive.  I've got limited time, so I should spend it doing the most important stuff, right?

            Which brings me to the title of the blog post.  Did you know your brain is a part of your body?  Of course you did.  I won't insult your intellect by suggesting otherwise.  I will, however, risk insulting your attitude.  Most humans behave as though they were in fact two different things.  We could say soul and body, or spirit and body, but these days, people mostly talk about their "self" in what I think is a similar way to how we used to talk about souls.   It's gotten a little pop-psychologized, but I think the gist (in this context) is the same:  I think and behave as though I, the person I talk about in my professional and social and emotional lives, am a different entity from my body.  Only I'm not.  I'm totally fucking not.  I don't know nearly enough about neuro-philosophy and -psychology to go into detail on this, but suffice to say your body is precisely the you you are always talking about.  Your body is precisely the you that makes art, and raises babies, and tries to love your partner(s), and listens to music and gets all choked up about it.  That is you.  That is your body.  If there is a spiritual element, which I believe there is, it's so deep and so essential I don't think we can hardly talk about it.  We might be able to sing or pray about it, and religious ceremonies can be great for connecting to it.  But if it's there at all, I'm pretty sure it's not the part of you that nearly cries over every sweet photo of a puppy on the internet.  (Okay, okay.  That specific issue might be more about me.)

            My point is, when you take care of your body, you are taking care of the very same thing that generates art and thought and insight and stories and plays and loving, well-reasoned responses to your horrible children/partner/family.  Taking care of your body is not a time-suck that keeps you away from your creativity; your job might be, and certainly some relationships can be, and without doubt the entire nightmare that is the modern nation-state-capitalism-entertainment-industry-death-knell is one gigantic time-suck.  Unfortunately, that mess isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and whenever it does, it will probably take us all with it.  So in the meantime, you can either a) abuse the body that makes all that joyous art and thought, or b) get rid of it as quickly as possible, in as slow and painful of a way as possible.

            Ham with a side of sedentary, anyone?

*  The interwebs in particular like to complain about hot moms and their jogger/strollers and Lululemon, though I've heard it in real-time as well.  

    I know.  It's just so obnoxious to see women (WOMEN!!) getting exercise, and they take up tons of room when they have those annoying "kid" things, and they get together in these groups and "chat" with each other about their feelings and their lives AND THEN THEY GO TO STARBUCKS AND CAN'T THEY TELL HOW OBNOXIOUS THEIR SKINNY LATTES ARE??!!

    But seriously, I'm sick of it.  Next time you feel like criticizing an upper-class woman with a nice ass, know that you are just jealous.

Tugging and Prying, in its Subtler Forms

            Thoughts on Chapter 10 of The Artist's Way.  Part ten of twelve on creativity.

            Humans (I'm told) are a social species.  I happen to be human.  Also, I'm a heterosexual and a woman (or maybe cis female would be a little more accurate), and these aspects of my social identity have contributed significantly to shaping me into someone who is nigh-on obsessed with social cues and norms.
            I've been on two silent meditation retreats now*.  Both were only five days long.  On neither of them did I achieve anything like the blissful state of calm I hear so many people describe.  I was definitely calmer by the end, but mostly that just made me realize how hopped up I am for 99% of my life.  And I have a pretty good guess what I'm hopped up on:  socialization.  Not because I like it.  I hate it.  I would almost go so far as to say I hate humans, if I wasn't afraid of alienating my readership.  (God how I aspire to having whales who would take my work seriously.)  But think about it.  This whole smile, make eye contact, then listen and talk thing is beyond exhausting.  I don't know how I manage it.  Because on both of my silent retreats, I spent the whole time on one loop:
            "Oh, no!  Should I have held the door/waited for him to take a bowl first/left my shoes outside/done my hair better/been quieter when I moved my eyeball?  They must be so irritated with me!  I'm sorry!  I'm so, so — Oh, wait!  We're in silence!  No one cares what I do!  I can relax!!"
            I relax for five seconds.
            Then, "Oh, no!  Should I have..."
            That is how I spend my life.  And I will go out on a limb and say that I suspect it is how you spend a large portion of your life, too, whether you're conscious of it or not.  Because I had absolutely no idea how I spent most of my life until I went on a meditation retreat and discovered that my universe turns on the axis of what people think of me.
            Obsessing about social cues, pressures, and norms looks different on different people.  I think it's important to realize that always pushing against the norm is still a way of defining oneself according to the norm.  Two of the many little boys in my life were recently discussing this with me.  Keshav, the elder brother, pointed out that his younger brother could be pretty easily manipulated by using reverse psychology.  Just say, "Ishaan, you better grab my car!  Or else!"  And, presto!  Ishi will stand defiantly over the car refusing to touch it for the rest of his life.  So I asked Ishi what was going on when people told him to do things.  He couldn't explain it (he's four years old, so such an explanation is probably a couple of years away), but he affirmed that no matter what, he always has to do the opposite of what he's told to do.  When I asked Keshav how he feels when grown-ups give him instructions, he got wide-eyed and a little serious and said, "Oh, I do what they say."  He also couldn't explain why; he just said that he felt like he really needed to do what the grown-ups told him to do.
            As Keshav's observation about manipulability demonstrates, Ishaan doesn't free himself by being so contrarian.  Both boys are making decisions, and the opinions of grown-ups weigh heavily in the scales.
            In Week 10 of The Artist's Way, Cameron discusses some of the most common blocks that people turn to in order to stifle their own creativity.  Two of them, erm, rang a bell with me:  relationships, and their best friend, sexuality.  I'm using the term "sexuality," and not "sex," because I'm not really talking about coitus.  I'm talking more about the mating game.  The relentless energy drain that is worrying about the bloody opposite sex/sex of interest.**
            When combined with the myriad other subtle pressures to smile, dress appropriately, not raise your voice in public anywhere ever on the West Coast, and rave about Mad Men/Breaking Bad/Walking Dead/insert popular show Leigh either despises or knows nothing about — these things add up.  As in, get heavy.  Get heavy and occupy the almost immeasurable quantities of mental energy we have, and never know we have, because they are always preoccupied with the things we're not conscious of.
            There's another trick to beware of here:  as soon as we hear the phrase "sex and relationships" we lie to/console ourselves by saying that's just a part of our life.  Like, somehow we compartmentalize sex and relationships (both the sexual and the non-) into these little, well-controlled sectors and don't let them interfere with the really important stuff.  This attitude is dangerous for at least two very obvious reasons:  it denigrates relationality/sexuality, by making them into distractions from the supposedly important stuff; and secondly, it's just not true.  You — the mass of creative, spiritual, intellectual, physical, and mental energy that you are — you are relational.  In other words, your relational and sexual qualities are not just a couple of the compartments, like intellect and physicality.  (The debate about the above list and which parts of it constitute "parts" and "wholes" will have to wait for another day.)  The you that is you is not even exclusively one you; it's a part of a whole.  By definition.
            The problem when you're talking about creativity and this relational aspect of us humans, is that frequently they directly conflict.  For one thing, there's time and energy.  Everyone in the world thinks they have a claim on your time, whether you've met them or not, and that goes about ten times over for women.  But beyond that, there's the weird, insistent tug that relationality exerts on our psyches.  You can kick everyone out of the room, for an indefinite period of time, and yet you know they will keep prying into parts of your head, the subtle desires and fears of approval and rejection, the obligations will never relent even in your own goddamn head.
            And of course, do you even want to kick everyone out of the room?  I, for one, do not.  I actually love some of those weirdos and wallflowers, and some of the rest I can even stand with measurable pleasure.
            But if I'm supposed to be writing about creativity (which I am), I have to say:  sometimes you gotta kick those guys out.  Like, everyone.  Everyone, even at the risk of making some people mad.  Even at the risk of making some people not like you, which is terrifying.  Even at the risk of kick them all out, to attempt (and fail) to clear some head space, so you can attempt to make an artifact that you will look at afterwards and know immediately:  it's a failure.
            Still, I stand by it.  Sometimes, you gotta kick those guys out.  Even the best of them.  Because not one person who has a claim on your love, affection, time, energy, interest, etc. — not one of them can live your life, can make the things you can make.  Not one can give you back that time later on so you can finally get to the work you've always been meaning to get to.




*  The silence of a meditation retreat is often called Noble Silence, and it means more than just not talking.  It means not talking, but also not listening in if/when you hear others talk, not reading or writing, and (blissfully) no eye contact.  No eye contact!!!   NO EYE CONTACT!!  That is what heaven is for me.  An eternity of being left alone.

**  Okay, so I assume heterosexuality when I say "opposite sex," and I'm not totally happy with the replacement, "sex of interest."  But for now, it's what I've got.  If someone could suggest a term that includes both opposite and same sex objects of interest and torment, please do.

A Warm and Fuzzy Post, that Isn't

            Thoughts on Chapter 9 of The Artist's Way.  Part nine of twelve on creativity.


          "Symptoms, then, are in reality nothing but a cry from suffering organs."  - Jean-Martin Charcot

            Oh, the myriad ways to come undone.  There are, of course, the "real" diseases — cancer is popular these days, and of course heart disease — and then the less-than-tangible organs make themselves known, don't they?

            Somatization disorder is a long-term (chronic) condition in which a person has physical symptoms that involve more than one part of the body, but no physical cause can be found.

            The pain and other symptoms people with this disorder feel are real, and are not created or faked on purpose (malingering).*

            Alcoholic neuropathy is damage to the nerves that results from excessive drinking of alcohol.

            The cause of alcoholic neuropathy is debated. It probably includes both a direct poisoning of the nerve by the alcohol, and the effect of poor nutrition associated with alcoholism. Up to half of all long-term heavy alcohol users develop this condition.**

            Even depression is getting its day in the sun, thanks to the invention of happy-drugs.  After all, if there's a drug to make the problem go away, it must be real (and surely must also have been accurately described by those making millions off of it).

            The chapter for Week 9 of The Artist's Way has to do with compassion.  As with many other chapters, I remain ambivalent about much of what Cameron has to say.  I should warn folks who haven't read it that Cameron is fond of telling stories about how as soon as Joe started taking his art seriously he had a million people loving his work and throwing money and opportunities at him.  So I take her with a grain of salt.  Still, the takeaway on it is simple:  being your own enemy doesn't work out too well.  For creative work, or for just attempting to be human.

            Self-loathing manifests in more ways than I care to count.  But even calling it "self-loathing" feels inaccurate.  When we say self-loathing, I think we imagine someone sitting by themselves with phrases like, "I hate myself," "I'm so worthless," and "Maybe the world would be better off without me" running through their head.  And don't get me wrong:  people do this.  Believe me.  I date them.  It's a fucking blast.

            What I'm talking about is the generally endemic self-rejection which we all engage in all the time.  To some extent, I suspect (pessimistically, I grant you) that self-rejection is necessary to socialization.  After all, there are so many emotional reactions and counteractions going on in our own heads and hearts, in any given minute of the day, that we simply couldn't interact with others if we didn't suppress some of the internal noise.  Add in a vague notion of sin/shame, a dash of consumerism, and you get America.

            And to this, Cameron has a response which I know was difficult for me, and would probably be difficult for a lot of people:  affirmations.  The Artist's Way uses or recommends the use of affirmations on a regular basis.  And while I shied away from the idea initially, Cameron makes an excellent point towards the beginning of the book:  why on earth is it considered not only normal but expected for us to regularly say hateful things to ourselves — i.e., "You're always late and you know everyone's pissed off at you for it."; "You're never going to get it together and stop incurring NSF charges, are you?"; etc. — but we think it's super weird to say something nice to ourself even if we know it's true?  What on earth is so bizarre about saying to yourself every once in awhile, "You know, sometimes I write/draw/build things I like."  Or, "Yesterday I got up on time and had plenty of time to do tons of stuff during the day.  I bet I could manage that again."  Or whatever.  Why is this weird?

            My short answer is that self-love is weird because we believe that it is 1) necessary to reject the failing parts of ourselves in order to see positive change, and 2) a sign of resiliency to be able to survive the onslaught of rejection.  Of course, we're not surviving the onslaught.  If a world characterized by young women starving/sexualizing/smiling themselves to death, and young men drinking/drugging/earning themselves to death, can be described as surviving, you and I don't live in the same world.  If the soul is dead, you have not survived.

            The mind will find a million ways to make itself, and its pain, known.  And the path back to wholeness within oneself is, I suspect, not short.  But the only way forward on it is, at some point, to give yourself a break.  All failures, all repeated dysfunctions, are one pitiful ego's attempt to protect, provide, and care for you.  It's like, the hardest working part of your whole head, and you just keep finding ways to insult and belittle it.  So my only recommendation this time around for creative health, is to give yourself a fucking break.

*  "Somatization disorder."  Medline Plus.  National Institute of Health.  Web.  12 September, 2013.

**  "Alcoholic neuropathy."  Medline Plus.  National Institute of Health.  Web.  12 September, 2013.

Postscript:  In all seriousness, if anyone's ever interested in reading a book or two about genuinely reconnecting to yourself, less from a warm fuzzy position and more from a position of calling bullshit on self-hatred, I highly recommend Sharon Salzberg's Lovingkindness: the Revolutionary Art of Happiness.  My favorite story is when she is nearly assaulted by a drunken man while traveling in Calcutta.  Afterwards, she told one of her sweet, loving, peace-filled teachers about it, and he said, "Oh, Sharon, with all the lovingkindness in your heart, you should have taken your umbrella and hit that man over the head with it!"

Hercules and the Old Maid

            Thoughts on Chapter 8 of The Artist's Way.  Part eight of twelve on creativity.


            "I hope I shall be able to tell it properly," she said anxiously.  "I fear I am very inclined to become rambling.  One wanders from the point — altogether without knowing that one is doing so.  And it is so hard to remember each fact in its proper order."  - Miss Marple, The Thirteen Problems

            "Oh! you are lying to me — you must be lying...."...

            Poirot came back, sat down in his chair, placed both hands on his knees and stared straight at his hostess.

            "The question is," he said, "can Hercule Poirot possibly be wrong?"

            "No one can always be right," said Mrs. Lorrimer coldly.

            "I am," said Poirot.  "Always I am right.  It is so invariable that it startles me."  - Cards on the Table

                            ____________________________

            Because I believe myself to be utterly fascinating (and I love to digress), I shall chronicle the contents of my writing desk at this time:

    -  Pyramid Curve Ball Blonde Ale.

    -  Voltaire's Candide, or Optimism.

    -  Simon Glendinning's Very Short Introduction to Derrida.  (The Oxford U Very Short Introduction series kicks ass, by the by.)

    -  The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, by Yukio Mishima.  No idea.  Haven't opened it.

    -  Pencils and pencil sharpener.

    -  Learn Ancient Greek, by Peter Jones.  Perfect.  So completely perfect if you're an incurable nerd with no aspirations of real mastery, such as myself.  Jones likes to make jokes, such as "κανναβις (no idea officer)."  I know!!  So funny!!!

    -  Lots of writing projects from the past year or so.  Mostly crap, but things are starting to look up.

    -  SEP articles on Plato.

    -  Crate & Barrel coupon.

    -  Plato's Theaetetus.  Also haven't opened this one.  We just glare at each other.

    -  List of the next nine movies I want to see.  I always keep this handy, because, as I never pay attention to it when I go to the rental store, I have more reasons to feel sure I am failing at life.  A whole list of them!

    -  Box of notecards and envelopes.

But the REALLY important things on my desk are:

    -  Agatha Christie's A Murder is Announced, The Thirteen Problems, The Mystery of the Blue Train, and Cards on the Table.

                            ____________________________

            One of these days I will abandon all pretense at being high-brow and dedicate myself exclusively to mystery/spy novels/movies.  The title of this blog hints at it, but my love of mysteries and spy stories often threatens my other interests.  Even my interest in men, which is saying something.

            But somehow this has to do with The Artist's Way?

            The title of Cameron's eighth chapter is "Recovering a Sense of Strength."  The chapter is full of good one-liners.  "Non illegitimi te carborundum" is great.  It's mock Latin for "Don't let the bastards grind you down."
            Also, "Artists and intellectuals are not the same animal."  Which is true, but doesn't say what to do when you are both animals, trapped in a cage together.
            Cameron actually has a lot to say about intellectuals, and she dives into the subject of academia for awhile.  I appreciate this a great deal.  I've touched on it here, but I doubt that academia is where artists belong.  In fact, Nigel Warburton, one of the podcasters responsible for Philosophy Bites, not too long ago came out and openly questioned whether academia is even where philosophers belong.
            So if academia is becoming unfriendly to intellectuals, I'm certainly not going to get on board with it for artists.
            But what is the relationship between artist and intellectual?  I used to be positive they were two entirely different things, and frequently not even on friendly terms with one another.  Are they entirely separate things, and I just have to learn how to live with two different monsters inside my head?  Are they distant cousins both descended from our common ancestors Agriculture and Civilization?  Or two pieces of the same thing?  Our society's over-valuation of intellect, and over-romanticizing of artists, muddies the water considerably.  Because then you have artists with zero intellectual talent trying to pass for smart (probably in order to get one of those respectable academic jobs).  And you have college professors who are just slightly-more-creative-than-the-average-person teachers pretending to be artists and dressing funny to prove it.

            Maybe someday I will arrive in a place where I truly believe that creativity and intellect are two pieces of the same thing.  Even so, I tend to believe that if you can talk about something as two distinct items, something is going on.  Going on enough that they bear discussion.
            Which brings me to Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple.

                            ____________________________

            Poirot and Marple are Agatha Christie's two most famous detectives.  Which is to say, they solve problems.  They answer questions no one else can answer.  They disclose mysteries to their baffled communities, and in so doing, model two very different intellectual systems.

            Hercule Poirot is a former Belgian police detective forced to flee the continent by World War I.  He is short, dark, round of body, and his well-waxed moustaches proclaim his foreignness to the still mostly homogenous British world he inhabits.  He is fond of sweet liqueurs and rich French food, and on sunny days he is likely to be found wearing heavy wool overcoats, while his British friends, dogs in tow, go for long walks to "take the air".  (Monsieur Poirot practically gags at discussions of fresh air.)  Hercule Poirot is "other," though as a man I suppose it would be most accurate to say he has one foot in, one foot out.

            Which bears some resemblance to Jane Marple, the absolutely-beyond-question-most-Englishest character ever.  One foot in.  She is, however, a woman, and an old maid at that.  One foot out.  Her being an old maid makes her susceptible to being presumed either a harmless fool (at best), or an irrational witchy type (at worst).  Either way, her venerable-but-virginal status makes her potentially easy to ignore when important things come up.  She spends most of her time pottering about her ancestral village, St. Mary Mead, running errands, gossiping* a bit here and there, and knitting.
            Though Christie heaps silly characteristics upon them, neither Marple nor Poirot can be dismissed as fools, though Poirot attempts to ward off impressions of ridiculousness more assertively than Marple does.  But then, what could be more ridiculous than for a short, portly man, with a French accent no less, to be named after the half-god Hercules?  I suspect, on the one hand, that Christie meant the name in just such a joking manner.  But it is also clear from her portrayal of Poirot that she means to poke fun at the xenophobia that sees him as the fool when he is so potently intelligent and logical.  Poirot makes it a point of pride to not exert himself very much physically.  "The little gray cells," he says, do all the work.  And they do.  Poirot's little gray cells are brilliant and, of course, see what the bumbling British police miss.  Poirot is powerful, in the world Christie has crafted for him.
            While Poirot exerts himself as little as possible physically, and yet formidably in an intellectual sphere, Miss Marple spends copious amounts of time visiting friends for tea, knitting, and quietly poking around for gossip, and far less time thinking and "solving problems."  Marple consistently demonstrates that she is far sharper and more brutally rational than anyone around her, but her methods of detection are peculiar.  If Poirot is something of a computer processor, Marple seems like more of a chemical catalyst for those around her.  When the mystery has been opened up, more often than not the police detectives involved will be shown to have substantively contributed, rather than just being the heavy-footed laborers to Poirot's virtuosic genius.  Marple prods, and greases the wheels, but she herself often needs (and asks for) help in bringing about the final moment of disclosure.

                            ____________________________

            I don't want to say, "So, who are you?  Poirot or Marple?"  We could have some fun personal conversations about that, but I have been thinking of Poirot and Marple more as modes.  I go into one and out of the other, sometimes with no intention of doing so, sometimes at the behest of my current activity.
            I've started taking piano lessons, and something about reading, playing, and singing music feels like a distinctly Marple activity.  While I sing or (attempt to) sight read at the piano, I feel like my brain cells mingle in a sort of diffuse way.  And certainly singing changes my relationship to language.  I'm only sort of joking, when I say that when I talk about God, I am almost inevitably in an atheistic/nihilistic despair by the end of the conversation.  When I sing God — either to or about, whatever either of those could possibly mean when singing — the entire universe makes so much sense, I feel frightened to stop and face the world of speech.  When I try to pin down my little spoken language brain cells down and ask them a question like, "What key is this song in?", I fall apart.  If I just look at the markings on the page, though, connections almost seem to form of their own accord between my eyes and fingers.  What I'm trying to convey is that it feels like my mind is being sociable within itself.  It's not answering questions, and it's not solving problems.  How could it, when it's busy chatting amongst itself?
            When my head is working with music, or meandering through a geography of questions, or wondering in a barely-focused sort of way...  This feels very Marple to me.  It also sort of reminds me of some of the better conversations that happen in my philosophy group, although in that case the group itself is functioning as a sort of mind/brain, which ties into the essentially social quality of Marple's methods.  Whatever circle Marple finds herself in, she drinks tea and chats and listens carefully and prods those surrounding her into becoming the mind that will answer the question.

            Poirot is much different, and while it may be obvious that I have a personal bias towards Marplean methods, Poirot's are not only impressive but needed for certain kinds of questions.  (This is why Christie, like any good mystery writer, doesn't give Marple a Poirot mystery, or vice versa.)  Poirot is famous for his ability to solve a crime with almost no clues to speak of.  He relies far more on psychology than the British detectives ever feel comfortable doing, and it is here that he most reminds me of Plato's ideal philosopher:  standing alone, thinking, and thinking, and thinking, carefully shifting one piece here, then there, until we arrive at the right answer.  While I critiqued this so-called Cartesian method last month, sometimes a person can do massive amounts of work all on their lonesome by simply sitting alone and concentrating.  After all, as I'm sure we're all well aware, the world is replete with people a thousand times dumber than the worst of the detectives Poirot has to work with.  And as an intellectual, you sometimes need a certain degree of fuck-everyone to disentangle you from the foolishness called humanity.  I myself am terrible at concentrating (witness the list of my desk's contents), but I know people who are fantastic at it and accomplish things I consider nigh-on miraculous doing it.
            So go forth!  Go forth and poirot, go forth and marple, and when you've not only given both a try, but mastered the ability to switch at will between the two modes, you should let me know how it goes.  By then this blog will probably have become exclusively devoted to Lord Wimsey and James Bond because really, isn't that where my life's been headed since day one?

*  I shall note here that I don't like the word "gossip."  Its connotations are almost exclusively negative.  I'm quite certain that well over half of my conversations would fall into the gossip category (certainly most of the interesting ones), and I'm not sure how humans are supposed to learn how to be human without talking about other humans, including their successes and failures.