May 8th, 2010 / 10:20 pm
Behind the Scenes

The Romantic or The Playful: a conversation about art and happiness

In response to this excellent post, Sean Lovelace said this:

    I detest the write-or-I will-die-school.

    Why can’t people write an intellectually stimulating activity, as intellectual play?

    It has to always be ink-as-blood thing?

    I don’t get it.

I’m going to suture in my (slightly edited) response here, as well. I would love input from all.

    Part of me thinks the art-as-blood/obsessional/devotional/romantic behavior and self-propagating myth is more akin to religious fervor, and dangerous.

    Part of me thinks the art-as-play behavior and lesser myth is not at all dangerous, and mostly a cause, or more a cause, of general happiness.

    I then jump to: what kind of art has risen out of each style of art making? And most of the books & films that I love and am most impressed & inspired by rose out of the first style (although many have risen out of the second style, e.g. Kurt Vonnegut), the potentially dangerous style.

    The latter, at its worst, can seem a bit objectified, like entertainment.

    I hold these two opposing styles in my head at once, have practiced both, and yet the one that leads to more general happiness and well-being is the latter. The one that leads to more art made, potentially better art made, is the former.

    Yet: the idea that I need reminding of most often, mostly self-initiated, is that ‘We are here on earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you any different.’ and that being a kind and loving and curious, i.e. happy person, is the most important goal that I have. Which doesn’t play well with the idea of the obsessional art making.

    Maybe this is why I revere Stanley Kubrick so much. The more and more I know about his lifestyle, the more and more I respect and admire his ability to be devoted to his art and devoted to his family.

    It’s the little-bit-every-day style vs. the orgiastic/ecstatic style. Peaks and valleys vs. steady rate. Tortoise and the hare?

    I find that this applies to romance, and romantic relationships, too. The myth of all-devouring romance, I think, is really dangerous. I’ve been there, done that, and it does intensify living in a way that is unparalleled, but like an Ecstasy trip, has a painful and numbing descent and valley.

    This is all toward a larger discussion that I’m trying to clear up in my own head about how best to make art, personally, and how best to be happy.

    Thoughts?

Tags: , , , ,

249 Comments

  1. Amber

      Ken: I love this. I love this attitude, and attempt to sort it out.

      My thoughts, for what they’re worth: When in my early twenties, I was obsessive/devotional/romantic/fervent about my art. I hung out with a lot of people who were the same. Many of us were depressed. Many of us were destructive, in all the ways you could imagine. We were being Edna St. vincent Millay and burning the candle at both ends. We didn’t even make much art because we were so obsessed with idea of making it, and being miserable because we weren’t.

      Ten years later. I am happy. Married. My artist friends make fun, but i make art, kind of. They make…not much. Kubrick is my work-life balance hero. Obsession with art is fine, is good, but you have to have people and places that make you happy. You have to have fun. I have fun writing. I have fun playing video games with my husband.

      Then again, that crazy self-destructive stereotypical artist’s life I lived for a while? I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But I won’t pretend it was about art. Which is okay, too.

  2. demi-puppet

      I’ve never been too attracted to the self-destructive lifestyle, mainly because the depression does enough of that on its own. And while I am pretty much obsessed with art, I don’t think that’s incompatible with a steady, stable lifestyle. I really take Emerson’s line about how the poet’s mind should become “tipsy with water” to heart. I do not seek out huge material thrills or stimulations, generally. My dream is living a very normal, steady, loving life with my family while producing the very best art I can. All the rest is superfluous.

  3. mark leidner

      art can only make other people happy

      or maybe… great art creates awe, not happiness, in its creator

      another thing i was thinking was, the more talent you have the more happiness you can afford. like if i had infinite talent i would just spent 5 mins. a day making the greatest art ever, then i would be free to spend the rest of the day laughing it up w/my friends, counting my money, drinking margaritas…

      but since talent is limited, i have to spend all this time thinking and worrying and trying to get more talent, get smarter, get a more complex mind, be a more complex doer and thinker, which is the opposite of happiness. happiness is simplicity. release. the absence of analysis

      happiness is blindness. art is eyes wide open. i guess the best case scenario is you stare your whole life at the world with your eyes wide open, and the sheer totality of all that perception bending into you blinds you by virtue of you seeing everything. if you see everything, you see nothing, in a way. then maybe you can be happy like that, Buddhism-style

  4. alan rossi

      i like this post a lot. i like what amber says, too, and feel sort of similarly. i have no idea if happiness is blindness and art is wide open, but it sounds nice. i don’t know about any of the happiness thoughts in general here. for me, both making art and making a life, i feel i have to cultivate disinterestedness, find some way to let things happen, turn off that part of my brain that wants to control and analyze. etc. i say this because for me the obsessive side of making art often gets in the way of the actual thing being made (like amber says). i mean: the want to make a great thing gets in the way of the thing being made. then the not getting (of making a great thing, of publishing it) gets in the way. the wanting and not getting can become more important than the thing being made, which seems entirely wrong. i wrote something about this on my blog a post or so back. was thinking about these very questions.

      anyway though, excellent post.

  5. phm

      I think the Greeks were right about most things.

  6. Rosetta Penn

      I don’t really disagree with anything you said. To each their own. But for me personally, I’ve always liked the ink-as-blood motto, because that’s how it’s always been for me. What’s more, it was a tremendous relief the day I realized there were other artists that felt that way too. I’m not anti happiness. I’m just pro passion, and pro feeling. For me, my negative feeling and experiences have always vastly overpowered the positive. So of course it comes across in what I write, and how I write. I’m not saying that to be a Debbie downer, I’m saying it because it’s true. At least, it’s true for me.

  7. Amber

      Ken: I love this. I love this attitude, and attempt to sort it out.

      My thoughts, for what they’re worth: When in my early twenties, I was obsessive/devotional/romantic/fervent about my art. I hung out with a lot of people who were the same. Many of us were depressed. Many of us were destructive, in all the ways you could imagine. We were being Edna St. vincent Millay and burning the candle at both ends. We didn’t even make much art because we were so obsessed with idea of making it, and being miserable because we weren’t.

      Ten years later. I am happy. Married. My artist friends make fun, but i make art, kind of. They make…not much. Kubrick is my work-life balance hero. Obsession with art is fine, is good, but you have to have people and places that make you happy. You have to have fun. I have fun writing. I have fun playing video games with my husband.

      Then again, that crazy self-destructive stereotypical artist’s life I lived for a while? I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But I won’t pretend it was about art. Which is okay, too.

  8. demi-puppet

      I’ve never been too attracted to the self-destructive lifestyle, mainly because the depression does enough of that on its own. And while I am pretty much obsessed with art, I don’t think that’s incompatible with a steady, stable lifestyle. I really take Emerson’s line about how the poet’s mind should become “tipsy with water” to heart. I do not seek out huge material thrills or stimulations, generally. My dream is living a very normal, steady, loving life with my family while producing the very best art I can. All the rest is superfluous.

  9. mark leidner

      art can only make other people happy

      or maybe… great art creates awe, not happiness, in its creator

      another thing i was thinking was, the more talent you have the more happiness you can afford. like if i had infinite talent i would just spent 5 mins. a day making the greatest art ever, then i would be free to spend the rest of the day laughing it up w/my friends, counting my money, drinking margaritas…

      but since talent is limited, i have to spend all this time thinking and worrying and trying to get more talent, get smarter, get a more complex mind, be a more complex doer and thinker, which is the opposite of happiness. happiness is simplicity. release. the absence of analysis

      happiness is blindness. art is eyes wide open. i guess the best case scenario is you stare your whole life at the world with your eyes wide open, and the sheer totality of all that perception bending into you blinds you by virtue of you seeing everything. if you see everything, you see nothing, in a way. then maybe you can be happy like that, Buddhism-style

  10. D

      Sean:

      Practice makes perfect. If you don’t believe that that then maybe you shouldn’t worry so much about the writing.

  11. Cheryl

      Interesting article. The ink-as-blood thing troubles me more as an older person, particularly because it seems many writers equate writing-as-play as an amateur stance– fear of being a dabbler?

  12. alan rossi

      i like this post a lot. i like what amber says, too, and feel sort of similarly. i have no idea if happiness is blindness and art is wide open, but it sounds nice. i don’t know about any of the happiness thoughts in general here. for me, both making art and making a life, i feel i have to cultivate disinterestedness, find some way to let things happen, turn off that part of my brain that wants to control and analyze. etc. i say this because for me the obsessive side of making art often gets in the way of the actual thing being made (like amber says). i mean: the want to make a great thing gets in the way of the thing being made. then the not getting (of making a great thing, of publishing it) gets in the way. the wanting and not getting can become more important than the thing being made, which seems entirely wrong. i wrote something about this on my blog a post or so back. was thinking about these very questions.

      anyway though, excellent post.

  13. phm

      I think the Greeks were right about most things.

  14. Rosetta Penn

      I don’t really disagree with anything you said. To each their own. But for me personally, I’ve always liked the ink-as-blood motto, because that’s how it’s always been for me. What’s more, it was a tremendous relief the day I realized there were other artists that felt that way too. I’m not anti happiness. I’m just pro passion, and pro feeling. For me, my negative feeling and experiences have always vastly overpowered the positive. So of course it comes across in what I write, and how I write. I’m not saying that to be a Debbie downer, I’m saying it because it’s true. At least, it’s true for me.

  15. demi-puppet

      Where does he say he doesn’t believe that??

  16. Jeroen Nieuwland

      Thanks for the thoughts. Very much recognise both but don’t want to choose between two or even multiple kinds of creation.

      I think art is the capturing of impersonal inexpressible events and that that can be a lot to deal with for an individual artist/writer. That is why so many are depressed/insane etc:

      But ultimately I think what matters in creating art/writing is the creation of the work, not the individual’s happiness. I mean, if someone writes to be happy this will usually not coincide with the production of art of lasting interest. So then I don’t think it matters how one works (raving, drooling, happy, etc) as long as the work gets done. Maybe sometimes it can be good to discipline yourself, maybe sometimes great writing is produced with minimal effort.

      Often the work can of course also dictate the way the person writes. I am thinking, for one, of Christian Bök who insists on completely reinventing himself with each new project. For him this goes as far as learning a whole new discipline (computer language, prosody, biology, etc).

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  18. Sean

      When did I mention anything about practice?

      Let’s take running.

      I used to be pretty “talented” I guess. I was sponsored, relatively fast, won my share of big races.

      Now I’m slower (and older, ha!) but I still run. I enjoy the act of running. The activity interests me, intellectually and physically.

      Why can’t writing be the same?

      Running is talent AND hard work. There is no doubt some runners are born more talented that other runners. But some runners with minimal talent work their asses off.

      And a lot of people just enjoy running, period, at whatever speed.

      I’m not saying don’t have passion. Both camps have passion.

      I’m saying that writing can exist as one intellectually enjoyable activity alongside other things in a person’s life.

      I’m also not talking about genius writers. Or masterpieces. Those artists should feel words are blood.

      I’m not delusional. I’m a reader. I know for a fact I don’t need to approach writing like someone about to write a masterpiece.

      I’m trying to write a decent sentence, most times.

  19. alexis

      I think maybe writing takes on a more significant (ie, religious) role when the writer begins to blame it for everything that’s not good outside of it. You get angst-y when life is hard, and as a writer, for me, that traditionally translated into a topsy-turvy writing life. Manic, doldrums, manic, doldrums. When I realized that my writing could be (and would be) better if re-calibrated life outside of writing, things started looking up.

  20. rk

      i think the idea is authenticity. you live the life that is authentic to you, you write in a way that is authentic to you. if your heart says have a family, raise kids, have a yard, write on the weekends or else you’ll regret your existence, then go for those things. myself? i don’t like kids. nothing wrong with it. live the authentic life and the work will follow. i very much doubt herman melville’s heart told him to write on weekends and be a good husband only he decided to go the obsessive/abusive maniac route because it was the cool thing to do. others tho probably need an aspect of play to make “it” happen. napoleon did not spend time thinking about becoming napoleon. napoleon was napoleon.

  21. D

      Sean:

      Practice makes perfect. If you don’t believe that that then maybe you shouldn’t worry so much about the writing.

  22. Donald

      sometimes people get worse with practice, and nobody has ever achieved total perfection. so, D. so.

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  24. demi-puppet

      Where does he say he doesn’t believe that??

  25. Jeroen Nieuwland

      Thanks for the thoughts. Very much recognise both but don’t want to choose between two or even multiple kinds of creation.

      I think art is the capturing of impersonal inexpressible events and that that can be a lot to deal with for an individual artist/writer. That is why so many are depressed/insane etc:

      But ultimately I think what matters in creating art/writing is the creation of the work, not the individual’s happiness. I mean, if someone writes to be happy this will usually not coincide with the production of art of lasting interest. So then I don’t think it matters how one works (raving, drooling, happy, etc) as long as the work gets done. Maybe sometimes it can be good to discipline yourself, maybe sometimes great writing is produced with minimal effort.

      Often the work can of course also dictate the way the person writes. I am thinking, for one, of Christian Bök who insists on completely reinventing himself with each new project. For him this goes as far as learning a whole new discipline (computer language, prosody, biology, etc).

  26. Jason Cook

      I, personally, am obsessive, and I just can’t see my way to understanding how a person can accomplish something great without that obsessing.

      On the other hand, I almost never write about my personal experiences, so in that respect it is an intellectual playing. But an artist should take his or her play very seriously. That’s the difference between playing and fucking around.

  27. Amy McDaniel

      This is more proposition than theory, but:

      This, the romantic or the playful, is perhaps the duality/conflict that exists most squarely within my personal ground zero; that is, I am always torn between the two.

      Art-making and art-consuming are, for me, exactly this tear. This rip. The rip itself, not either side. The impetus toward art IS the tension between melancholy (both the good deep contemplative kind or the bad drowning kind) and mirth (both the good life-giving kind and the bad annihilating kind). Art is the electricity along the wire between the two. It is not, ever, one or the other, nor is it exactly *both* or *neither.* It is the rip, or the series of rips. The perforation.

  28. Kristen Iskandrian

      Good discussion. For me, the answer to most questions of this nature is ‘discipline.’ There was a time when I fretted that I was too well-adjusted to write (well), too materialistic, too concerned with comfort, too organized, etc. But, and along the lines of Amber’s comment, I was not writing during the most tempestuous phases of my life. I’m not cut out to be the poet-in-the-gutter.

      I think we are capable of vast complexity, contradictions, multitudes. That is part of what defines the artist. And making art is the impulse, at least partly, to probe these complexities, exorcise or embrace them. I think conversations about ‘authenticity’ are generally useless.

      I find many reasons not to write, and there are other things in my life that bring me great pleasure. I’m prone to anxiety and an accompanying sorrow, loneliness, fatalism. Like many people, surely. For me, in my life, of which art is a part, those periods of paralysis are best dealt with pragmatically. Get up. Wash face. Pick one thing up off the floor, and then another. Eat something. Walk. Write. Connect with a person. Repeat as needed, etc.

  29. Kristen Iskandrian

      Amy–I didn’t see this before I added my comment. I say: yes, and yes.

  30. Sean

      When did I mention anything about practice?

      Let’s take running.

      I used to be pretty “talented” I guess. I was sponsored, relatively fast, won my share of big races.

      Now I’m slower (and older, ha!) but I still run. I enjoy the act of running. The activity interests me, intellectually and physically.

      Why can’t writing be the same?

      Running is talent AND hard work. There is no doubt some runners are born more talented that other runners. But some runners with minimal talent work their asses off.

      And a lot of people just enjoy running, period, at whatever speed.

      I’m not saying don’t have passion. Both camps have passion.

      I’m saying that writing can exist as one intellectually enjoyable activity alongside other things in a person’s life.

      I’m also not talking about genius writers. Or masterpieces. Those artists should feel words are blood.

      I’m not delusional. I’m a reader. I know for a fact I don’t need to approach writing like someone about to write a masterpiece.

      I’m trying to write a decent sentence, most times.

  31. Amy McDaniel

      Kristen–yes and yes to you too! Re: not writing, just read this great sentence by Harry Mathews in 60 Lines a Day: “Having nothing to write about (nothing *particular* to write about) suggests a question: what this morning do you particularly not want to say?”

  32. alexis

      I think maybe writing takes on a more significant (ie, religious) role when the writer begins to blame it for everything that’s not good outside of it. You get angst-y when life is hard, and as a writer, for me, that traditionally translated into a topsy-turvy writing life. Manic, doldrums, manic, doldrums. When I realized that my writing could be (and would be) better if re-calibrated life outside of writing, things started looking up.

  33. Kristen Iskandrian

      Ha, nice. And the ol’ chestnut from Thomas Mann: “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”

  34. Kristen Iskandrian

      oops, comment below was meant to be a reply. wah-wah.

  35. rk

      i think the idea is authenticity. you live the life that is authentic to you, you write in a way that is authentic to you. if your heart says have a family, raise kids, have a yard, write on the weekends or else you’ll regret your existence, then go for those things. myself? i don’t like kids. nothing wrong with it. live the authentic life and the work will follow. i very much doubt herman melville’s heart told him to write on weekends and be a good husband only he decided to go the obsessive/abusive maniac route because it was the cool thing to do. others tho probably need an aspect of play to make “it” happen. napoleon did not spend time thinking about becoming napoleon. napoleon was napoleon.

  36. mimi

      “write-or-I-will-die” starts to sound narcissistic to me.

      If it hurts, try going for “hurts so good”.

  37. Donald

      sometimes people get worse with practice, and nobody has ever achieved total perfection. so, D. so.

  38. demi-puppet

      I always remind myself that perhaps the greatest writer ever (Shakespeare) seemed to have lived a completely “normal” and uneventful life. Perception, attentiveness, memory, and imaginative fertility are I think the personal “skills” that contribute toward great art, and the development of these isn’t really dependent on any certain kind of lifestyle. . . .

  39. topher

      Like most things, I don’t think it’s a question of “one or the other”. Most great writing involves both the intense, passionate need to write and a good sense of craftsmanship. There might be examples of people who did one and not the other (and were good enough that it didn’t matter), but they’re extremely few.

  40. Amy McDaniel

      I am much agreed.

      The death of Shakespeare’s beloved young son Hamnet was perhaps the exception that proved the rule of uneventfulness.

  41. Mike Meginnis

      I am obsessed with having a lot of fun writing. That is, I feel as if I will be absolutely miserable if I don’t write, but not because it’s important to the universe — just because it’s important to me, and I like it.

      I do sort of have the “trying to write a masterpiece” thing going, it’s something I probably need to get past in my writing. Not sure I’ll be able to let go of it until I sell a book, though.

  42. Ben Segal

      I want to note Georges Perec as a case of someone for whom the thinking of writing as play fostered the serious engagement in writing as work. Literary play essentially becomes the approach that allows him to confront his most difficult subject matter (as in W.), and it is also the mode by which he satisfied his drive to write.

  43. mimi

      The loss of a child is absolutely grounds for the “I-will-die” terror.

  44. demi-puppet

      This is how I feel, kinda. For me the ideal experience is when you hit that sweet spot between the part of you that’s just having a shitload of fun and the part that wants to write the best goddamed book ever. Too far on either extreme and I either get bored, or terribly anxious.

  45. Jason Cook

      I, personally, am obsessive, and I just can’t see my way to understanding how a person can accomplish something great without that obsessing.

      On the other hand, I almost never write about my personal experiences, so in that respect it is an intellectual playing. But an artist should take his or her play very seriously. That’s the difference between playing and fucking around.

  46. Ridge

      I love the way Brian Eno thinks of musicianship, how he notes that many of the significant contributions to music weren’t made by musicians, but dabblers. Eno considers himself a dabbler. I try to approach writing in the same manner. And I also think every writer should pick up a deck of Oblique Strategies cards. They help when stuck.

      Great post, Ken!

  47. Amy McDaniel

      This is more proposition than theory, but:

      This, the romantic or the playful, is perhaps the duality/conflict that exists most squarely within my personal ground zero; that is, I am always torn between the two.

      Art-making and art-consuming are, for me, exactly this tear. This rip. The rip itself, not either side. The impetus toward art IS the tension between melancholy (both the good deep contemplative kind or the bad drowning kind) and mirth (both the good life-giving kind and the bad annihilating kind). Art is the electricity along the wire between the two. It is not, ever, one or the other, nor is it exactly *both* or *neither.* It is the rip, or the series of rips. The perforation.

  48. Kristen Iskandrian

      Good discussion. For me, the answer to most questions of this nature is ‘discipline.’ There was a time when I fretted that I was too well-adjusted to write (well), too materialistic, too concerned with comfort, too organized, etc. But, and along the lines of Amber’s comment, I was not writing during the most tempestuous phases of my life. I’m not cut out to be the poet-in-the-gutter.

      I think we are capable of vast complexity, contradictions, multitudes. That is part of what defines the artist. And making art is the impulse, at least partly, to probe these complexities, exorcise or embrace them. I think conversations about ‘authenticity’ are generally useless.

      I find many reasons not to write, and there are other things in my life that bring me great pleasure. I’m prone to anxiety and an accompanying sorrow, loneliness, fatalism. Like many people, surely. For me, in my life, of which art is a part, those periods of paralysis are best dealt with pragmatically. Get up. Wash face. Pick one thing up off the floor, and then another. Eat something. Walk. Write. Connect with a person. Repeat as needed, etc.

  49. Kristen Iskandrian

      Amy–I didn’t see this before I added my comment. I say: yes, and yes.

  50. Amy McDaniel

      Kristen–yes and yes to you too! Re: not writing, just read this great sentence by Harry Mathews in 60 Lines a Day: “Having nothing to write about (nothing *particular* to write about) suggests a question: what this morning do you particularly not want to say?”

  51. stephen
  52. Kristen Iskandrian

      Ha, nice. And the ol’ chestnut from Thomas Mann: “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”

  53. Kristen Iskandrian

      oops, comment below was meant to be a reply. wah-wah.

  54. Jasmine

      A big philosophy that they pushed in my fiction program was that the writing that tends to be the most effective is what you have fun writing. Readers can tell when you’re enjoying what you’re doing. If you get bogged down in the pursuit, which seems to be a natural part of the obsessive tendency, it often ends up being miserable for everyone anyway– assuming the work even gets finished. You can be prolific and care about your work and develop writerly discipline without farming tumors over it all.

  55. mimi

      “write-or-I-will-die” starts to sound narcissistic to me.

      If it hurts, try going for “hurts so good”.

  56. demi-puppet

      I always remind myself that perhaps the greatest writer ever (Shakespeare) seemed to have lived a completely “normal” and uneventful life. Perception, attentiveness, memory, and imaginative fertility are I think the personal “skills” that contribute toward great art, and the development of these isn’t really dependent on any certain kind of lifestyle. . . .

  57. jereme

      art is a window.

      not all get a choice. for some their is only one path regardless.

      i will miss sam pink when he’s gone.

      good article ken.

  58. jereme

      *there

  59. topher

      Like most things, I don’t think it’s a question of “one or the other”. Most great writing involves both the intense, passionate need to write and a good sense of craftsmanship. There might be examples of people who did one and not the other (and were good enough that it didn’t matter), but they’re extremely few.

  60. Amy McDaniel

      I am much agreed.

      The death of Shakespeare’s beloved young son Hamnet was perhaps the exception that proved the rule of uneventfulness.

  61. Mike Meginnis

      I am obsessed with having a lot of fun writing. That is, I feel as if I will be absolutely miserable if I don’t write, but not because it’s important to the universe — just because it’s important to me, and I like it.

      I do sort of have the “trying to write a masterpiece” thing going, it’s something I probably need to get past in my writing. Not sure I’ll be able to let go of it until I sell a book, though.

  62. Ben Segal

      I want to note Georges Perec as a case of someone for whom the thinking of writing as play fostered the serious engagement in writing as work. Literary play essentially becomes the approach that allows him to confront his most difficult subject matter (as in W.), and it is also the mode by which he satisfied his drive to write.

  63. mimi

      The loss of a child is absolutely grounds for the “I-will-die” terror.

  64. demi-puppet

      This is how I feel, kinda. For me the ideal experience is when you hit that sweet spot between the part of you that’s just having a shitload of fun and the part that wants to write the best goddamed book ever. Too far on either extreme and I either get bored, or terribly anxious.

  65. Ridge

      I love the way Brian Eno thinks of musicianship, how he notes that many of the significant contributions to music weren’t made by musicians, but dabblers. Eno considers himself a dabbler. I try to approach writing in the same manner. And I also think every writer should pick up a deck of Oblique Strategies cards. They help when stuck.

      Great post, Ken!

  66. stephen
  67. Jasmine

      A big philosophy that they pushed in my fiction program was that the writing that tends to be the most effective is what you have fun writing. Readers can tell when you’re enjoying what you’re doing. If you get bogged down in the pursuit, which seems to be a natural part of the obsessive tendency, it often ends up being miserable for everyone anyway– assuming the work even gets finished. You can be prolific and care about your work and develop writerly discipline without farming tumors over it all.

  68. jereme

      art is a window.

      not all get a choice. for some their is only one path regardless.

      i will miss sam pink when he’s gone.

      good article ken.

  69. jereme

      *there

  70. phm

      Is Sam okay what the fuck

  71. daniel bailey

      i really like this thought: “or maybe… great art creates awe, not happiness, in its creator”

  72. phm

      Is Sam okay what the fuck

  73. Matthew Simmons

      How to fuck, for example.

  74. daniel bailey

      i really like this thought: “or maybe… great art creates awe, not happiness, in its creator”

  75. Matthew Simmons

      How to fuck, for example.

  76. keith n b

      this comment tore me a new one. many fine electrodes.

  77. Ken Baumann

      Hey Amber,

      Thanks for the kind words, and your shifting perceptions. Seems to me that the transition out of the art-as-blood and into the much more manageable art making style is also a transition of aging, which is beautiful, I think.

      “But I won’t pretend it was about art. Which is okay, too.”
      This is excellent.

      Thanks again.

  78. Ken Baumann

      I’m with you, here. There exists, I think, a notion of disgust toward steadiness or safety from artists. I know that for me: when I’m not mercurial or wild, I want to be in my most uncomfortable/depressed/insecure moments. I want what I don’t have. I try to minimize this want, esp. toward a way of living and making that I know isn’t sustainable or any good for the people I love.

      Thanks for sharing.

  79. Ken Baumann

      Or incite rage, like the Rites of Spring.

      ‘great art creates awe, not happiness, in its creator
      I like this. There was something written at the New York Times recently, some psychology study about people’s most shared emotion over the internet. Gist: people wanted to feel awe the most. The most shared stories or videos, etc., were generally of the ‘awe-inspiring’ nature; Western (?) ideas of awe: marveling at kindness, heroics, technological achievement, scientific discovery & detail, etc… Interesting.

      Eyes Wide Shut may have just opened up again in a different way for me, because of this. Thank you. I really like and agree with you re: the notion of the artist seeing all and seeing nothing.

  80. Ken Baumann

      Thanks for piping up here.

      I agree. ‘Placement’ can be a toxic chain of thought.

  81. Ken Baumann

      Could you expand on that?

  82. Ken Baumann

      Could you expand on that. ;)

  83. Ken Baumann

      Hey Rosetta,

      Good, I’m happy to hear this.
      I don’t think the latter style of art making, even if it can seem or feel more casual, is lacking in feeling or passion… maybe the passion is just stretched out.

      Thanks.

  84. Ken Baumann

      That’s it. There isn’t much romantic myth behind casual behavior, unfortunately. Casual behavior is generally attached to the character of the fool, who sort of bumbles and may or may not solve problems in weird, implicit ways, or just by luck.

      I think passion can just easily manifest in a long engagement with something as it can in a burst.

  85. Ken Baumann

      ‘I mean, if someone writes to be happy this will usually not coincide with the production of art of lasting interest.’

      I think I disagree entirely with this. See DFW, David Lynch, etc.

  86. Ken Baumann

      ‘I’m also not talking about genius writers. Or masterpieces. Those artists should feel words are blood.’

      Why?

      Would you have to recognize yourself as a genius writer, or as writing a masterpiece, and then adjust to feel right? Or is it like a job requirement of being a Genius, that you must be entirely consumed by making the art?

      Ehh.

  87. Ken Baumann

      That’s good to hear. Thank you.

  88. Ken Baumann

      ‘napoleon did not spend time thinking about becoming napoleon.’

      I doubt that.

  89. jereme

      ken, how can passion exist in jest?

  90. Ken Baumann

      Amy: this is beautiful. Thank you.

      Tension is vital, and Two Opposing Ideas is the markedly human source of tension.

  91. Ken Baumann

      Yes yes yes. Thanks for sharing this. Our pulses match, here.

  92. Hank

      It’s too early to say if the works of David Foster Wallace and David Lynch or going to be of lasting interest.

  93. Hank

      *are

  94. Ken Baumann

      I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the ‘try to write a masterpiece’ thing. You want to make something great, for yourself and for others. Where’s the bad?

  95. Ken Baumann

      Thanks for sharing this example. I need to get into Perec.

  96. Ken Baumann

      Yes! Thanks for bringing up Eno. I’ve had an Oblique Strategies deck for awhile, and yeah, it’s excellent and weird.

  97. Ken Baumann

      Yes.

      Although I think anyone can alter their path, or their behavior. We know this.

  98. David

      Hi Ken. One of the problems with the playful is that today fun is blood, more so than the work of romance, say. And moreover fun is actually hard work because it’s incredibly difficult to feel pleasure when pleasure is predicated on so much anxiety as to its perpetuation: infinite pleasure. I think writing can’t quite escape this general logic. I mean, I wonder what exactly philosophy people are promoting to themselves when they say they write for fun. It’s odd: I mean, is writing like a video game? Or is it like waxing? Or what is it exactly, like what metaphor? And for it to be fun, does it require a certain aptitude toward it? I mean, is it like a sport where if you sucked at it but really wanted to play all the same, wouldn’t the drive for fun itself mangle you then? Sean’s point that writing can exist as an activity among others in one’s life is certainly valid but I must admit – like the madwoman in the attic – I don’t think writing keeps its balance too well: I think it actively tips people’s shit over. It can be managed, sure, but I’ve never really bought the idea of writing as not oriented toward an end, even if that end is to be read by somebody, including yourself, the person writing or who wrote. So, like, to bring my point more specifically back to your post, I almost feel like the regulation of writing can also turn writing into a binge ethic: it’s certainly like that for me and what is binging but the routinisation of excess. It has its downside too is sort of what I mean: the pretensions and massive collapses of obsessive-compulsive, all-consuming dedication to writing which are a certain image of artistry tend to be considered less healthy when the wear of writing as hobby has its own scar face too, I guess. It is my sense that writing works better when it isnt plugged into itself as its own reason for being: weirdly, in that sense, the writing for writing’s sake attitude, though it is seemingly fun-based, is quite ouroboros-like. That can produce powerful results but it can also devastate too: especially if you can’t muster the output to achieve your pictured aesthetic and intellectual standards. It’s a tricky territory when it comes to writing: romance is secreted everywhere.

  99. Ken Baumann

      What’s your timeline? What are your numbers like?

  100. jereme

      eh, we are going to disagree here.

      all i know is what i know. i know i have seen the majestic commit suicide in gruesome abrupt fashion, some near the end of their natural tenures as humans.

      i know some people have mental illness which doesn’t allow them to change their mode of thought.

      there is the issue of awareness.

      but, yeah, i think most have the ability to change their path. i suppose.

      not all, though.

  101. Ken Baumann

      You’re right, we agree. I was absent minded with that comment; ‘anyone’.

  102. Ken Baumann

      David: this is fucking excellent and I need to digest a bit more, but would like to walk outside a bit beforehand. Thanks in advance, and I’ll talk back shortly.

  103. mimi

      Funny, I was going to say the same thing!

  104. keith n b

      this comment tore me a new one. many fine electrodes.

  105. Ken Baumann

      Bill Hicks.

  106. Steve Silberman

      Ken, excellent post! Thank you.

      I remember, in my 20s, when I wrote mostly poetry, waiting for the muse to arrive. It would come with a feeling of Things Putting Themselves Together, Patterns Emerging of Their Own Accord, and I would write. If I didn’t or couldn’t write just then, I was apt to forget. I had to grab the thread or the whole weave would never have the chance to exist. Exciting! (And I remember something my old teacher Allen Ginsberg told me: “If the muse comes to your bedside at night, don’t tell her you’ll fuck her later.”) Now I’m an old hack, having made a living writing for about 17 years now — and who can afford to wait for the muse? Inspiration, schminspiration. If 3000 words are due next week, I’d damn well better be writing them this week. Art as blood vs. art as play? What about art as work? Can it still be art? It better, because most of the working artists in this world — if you’re lucky enough to be paid for making art — have a certain amount of stuff they have to produce on deadline.

      But underneath that, the truth is that the muse still comes, or not. At certain times of day — many — I’m too stupid to be the “Steve Silberman” anyone wants to read. I’m flailing, unfocused. The pattern doth not cohere, which means that the Great Pattern doth not showeth itself in my weaving. So I keep at it. I get disgusted and take a walk… and She comes. There is no controlling her. All the metaphors are apt. When She comes, the art itself is more like blood, but the act of creating it feels more like play. To be in that wide open space where the music gives birth to itself! Just to live NEAR that place has been worth building the foundation of my life on my (crappy) art. Is it blood, play, or merely commerce? Yes. (But I also know when the commerce takes over and I’m just filling the air with crap.)

      About love: Like everyone, when I was young, I thought I’d meet the One and Only. And then I did. And after working out wonderfully for a while, it didn’t work out. So I moved on, through various relationships — some that had that “one and only” aura about them, and others that seemed more earthbound. After a few of both kinds, I’ve come to the conclusion that, while One and Only love can take you higher, it’s basically an illusion. If you’re lucky, it’s a mutual illusion, I guess. I don’t know. My parents had that kind of love, starting in highschool; they still had to evolve, grow, divorce, remarry each other fergawdsakes… and then my dad died suddenly and now my mom is figuring out, painfully, how to make it on her own. After having that kind of love blow up in my face a couple of times, I married a great guy who only seemed like the One and Only after years and years and years. What my relationship with Keith has that the others didn’t was a feeling that everything is workable. No disastrous apocalypses, no endlessly escalating tensions that can only be resolved with mindblowing sex. Just: friendship and affection, deepening over decades. A willingness to listen to each other, to be patient, to stay true to ourselves and this quietly beautiful thing we’ve built together. Play, blood? It’s the realest thing I know.

      Something like that also seems to be true of making art.

  107. jereme

      just because what the man said was funny doesn’t mean he was having fun or farting around.

      what i know of him says the contrary.

  108. jereme

      but good try :)

  109. jereme

      i ask because i can not reasonably find an answer to the question. to me, passion can only exist passionately.

      you said:

      “I think passion can just easily manifest in a long engagement with something as it can in a burst.”

      which prompted the thought/question.

      enlighten me.

  110. Ken Baumann

      Jazz & dance.

  111. jereme

      you believe the people of passion within the confines of “jazz” or “dance” truly view it in jest, as something for intellectual fun?

      now i think you are just fucking with me.

  112. Chu

      sounds like a bunch of people trying to convince themselves that not doing things the hard way is the better way and I disagree. either throw your entire being into what it is that you are doing or get the fuck out. this world is full of half-assers; we don’t need anymore.

  113. Ken Baumann

      No, not jest; I guess the answer is no, not at all. I was thinking Fun and not Jest, after your response to the Hicks posit.

      Jest is Fun but Fun is not just Jest.

      I think that passion has in it a sort of manic/massive fun, or manic/massive joy.

      I think that artists can have fun in modes of passion. Do you disagree?

      I think that passion, in my weird sense of the idea, is an endeavor or way of being that takes a lot of thought and action, a lot of consideration and application. I think that incredibly strong emotion can express itself in ways that are more a bedrock than a flood, if that makes sense. A metaphor: a fifty year relationship. A metaphor: fifty years of writing poetry. It may not be torrential, but dedication–to me–is also passionate.

  114. jereme

      “I think that artists can have fun in modes of passion. Do you disagree?”

      hmm, this question is a difficult thing to answer.

      i think i do disagree but i don’t know if i agree with it.

      if that makes sense.

      i only know my reality.

      passion is not fun.

      it is what derails me.

      it is the time when rarely am i aware until the landscape is sliding down around me.

      i know passion can only be expressed with ardor.

      your relationship seems to be a ruse. i would argue such a protracted relationship exists only because of the small, intense passionate moments along the way and the rest of the relationship is built around those, not the other way around.

      like i said, i am having a hard time understanding your thought process.

      i am not challenging you, but trying to learn.

      where is sean. he should be liable for an answer too.

  115. phm

      The biggest thing I’ve come to realize is that they were right about physical fitness being paramount and the key to a happy life. The better shape I get in, the better I feel about the world around me, and the more I feel I can contribute to it.

      After that, I think, like most people, I try to maintain Aristotle’s Golden Mean. It’s an effort to be a reasonable person.

  116. phm

      Guess I replied to the wrong comment. See above.

  117. darby

      no one is passionate about art.

  118. Ken Baumann

      Critics?

  119. Trey

      no one? not even one?

  120. jereme

      what the fuck does this even mean? “about art”?

  121. Ken Baumann

      Hey Amber,

      Thanks for the kind words, and your shifting perceptions. Seems to me that the transition out of the art-as-blood and into the much more manageable art making style is also a transition of aging, which is beautiful, I think.

      “But I won’t pretend it was about art. Which is okay, too.”
      This is excellent.

      Thanks again.

  122. Ken Baumann

      I’m with you, here. There exists, I think, a notion of disgust toward steadiness or safety from artists. I know that for me: when I’m not mercurial or wild, I want to be in my most uncomfortable/depressed/insecure moments. I want what I don’t have. I try to minimize this want, esp. toward a way of living and making that I know isn’t sustainable or any good for the people I love.

      Thanks for sharing.

  123. Ken Baumann

      Or incite rage, like the Rites of Spring.

      ‘great art creates awe, not happiness, in its creator
      I like this. There was something written at the New York Times recently, some psychology study about people’s most shared emotion over the internet. Gist: people wanted to feel awe the most. The most shared stories or videos, etc., were generally of the ‘awe-inspiring’ nature; Western (?) ideas of awe: marveling at kindness, heroics, technological achievement, scientific discovery & detail, etc… Interesting.

      Eyes Wide Shut may have just opened up again in a different way for me, because of this. Thank you. I really like and agree with you re: the notion of the artist seeing all and seeing nothing.

  124. darby

      rather, what the fuck does this mean… “passionate” ?

      if you’re passionate, die for it, otherwise.

      if a parent is passionate about art, do they merely dabble in parenthood?

      wait, no, I mean everyone is passionate about art.

      wait no, i mean everyone is passionate about everything.

      everyone is completely passionate and dispassionate about everything and nothing.

  125. Ken Baumann

      Thanks for piping up here.

      I agree. ‘Placement’ can be a toxic chain of thought.

  126. Ken Baumann

      Could you expand on that?

  127. Ken Baumann

      Could you expand on that. ;)

  128. Ken Baumann

      Hey Rosetta,

      Good, I’m happy to hear this.
      I don’t think the latter style of art making, even if it can seem or feel more casual, is lacking in feeling or passion… maybe the passion is just stretched out.

      Thanks.

  129. Ken Baumann

      That’s it. There isn’t much romantic myth behind casual behavior, unfortunately. Casual behavior is generally attached to the character of the fool, who sort of bumbles and may or may not solve problems in weird, implicit ways, or just by luck.

      I think passion can just easily manifest in a long engagement with something as it can in a burst.

  130. jereme

      parenthood is a burden. passion does not play.

  131. jereme

      parenthood is a burden. passion does not play.

  132. Ken Baumann

      ‘I mean, if someone writes to be happy this will usually not coincide with the production of art of lasting interest.’

      I think I disagree entirely with this. See DFW, David Lynch, etc.

  133. Ken Baumann

      ‘I’m also not talking about genius writers. Or masterpieces. Those artists should feel words are blood.’

      Why?

      Would you have to recognize yourself as a genius writer, or as writing a masterpiece, and then adjust to feel right? Or is it like a job requirement of being a Genius, that you must be entirely consumed by making the art?

      Ehh.

  134. Ken Baumann

      That’s good to hear. Thank you.

  135. Ken Baumann

      ‘napoleon did not spend time thinking about becoming napoleon.’

      I doubt that.

  136. jereme

      ken, how can passion exist in jest?

  137. Ken Baumann

      Amy: this is beautiful. Thank you.

      Tension is vital, and Two Opposing Ideas is the markedly human source of tension.

  138. Ken Baumann

      Yes yes yes. Thanks for sharing this. Our pulses match, here.

  139. Hank

      It’s too early to say if the works of David Foster Wallace and David Lynch or going to be of lasting interest.

  140. jereme

      but to be honest, darby, all asshole haberdashery aside, yes and yes.

      if one is passionate, then it is a consuming thing. their relationships will fail. things will suffer. a mind can only shift focus so many ways.

      i found it no surprise at awp that most the people there seemed to not have any significant relationship in their life.

      while my writing has suffered because i have spent more time with my relationship because i value the relationship more so than myself–and writing is inherently a selfish act.

      what part of “passionate” eludes you?

      think INTENSITY.

  141. jereme

      but to be honest, darby, all asshole haberdashery aside, yes and yes.

      if one is passionate, then it is a consuming thing. their relationships will fail. things will suffer. a mind can only shift focus so many ways.

      i found it no surprise at awp that most the people there seemed to not have any significant relationship in their life.

      while my writing has suffered because i have spent more time with my relationship because i value the relationship more so than myself–and writing is inherently a selfish act.

      what part of “passionate” eludes you?

      think INTENSITY.

  142. Hank

      *are

  143. Ken Baumann

      I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the ‘try to write a masterpiece’ thing. You want to make something great, for yourself and for others. Where’s the bad?

  144. Ken Baumann

      Thanks for sharing this example. I need to get into Perec.

  145. Ken Baumann

      Yes! Thanks for bringing up Eno. I’ve had an Oblique Strategies deck for awhile, and yeah, it’s excellent and weird.

  146. demi-puppet

      This works both ways. Sometimes the “I MUST write!” stuff sounds like an artist convincing themselves -into- doing the work. There are those who can work w/ their whole being without all the excess pomp and cheerleading.

  147. demi-puppet

      This works both ways. Sometimes the “I MUST write!” stuff sounds like an artist convincing themselves -into- doing the work. There are those who can work w/ their whole being without all the excess pomp and cheerleading.

  148. Ken Baumann

      Yes.

      Although I think anyone can alter their path, or their behavior. We know this.

  149. David

      Hi Ken. One of the problems with the playful is that today fun is blood, more so than the work of romance, say. And moreover fun is actually hard work because it’s incredibly difficult to feel pleasure when pleasure is predicated on so much anxiety as to its perpetuation: infinite pleasure. I think writing can’t quite escape this general logic. I mean, I wonder what exactly philosophy people are promoting to themselves when they say they write for fun. It’s odd: I mean, is writing like a video game? Or is it like waxing? Or what is it exactly, like what metaphor? And for it to be fun, does it require a certain aptitude toward it? I mean, is it like a sport where if you sucked at it but really wanted to play all the same, wouldn’t the drive for fun itself mangle you then? Sean’s point that writing can exist as an activity among others in one’s life is certainly valid but I must admit – like the madwoman in the attic – I don’t think writing keeps its balance too well: I think it actively tips people’s shit over. It can be managed, sure, but I’ve never really bought the idea of writing as not oriented toward an end, even if that end is to be read by somebody, including yourself, the person writing or who wrote. So, like, to bring my point more specifically back to your post, I almost feel like the regulation of writing can also turn writing into a binge ethic: it’s certainly like that for me and what is binging but the routinisation of excess. It has its downside too is sort of what I mean: the pretensions and massive collapses of obsessive-compulsive, all-consuming dedication to writing which are a certain image of artistry tend to be considered less healthy when the wear of writing as hobby has its own scar face too, I guess. It is my sense that writing works better when it isnt plugged into itself as its own reason for being: weirdly, in that sense, the writing for writing’s sake attitude, though it is seemingly fun-based, is quite ouroboros-like. That can produce powerful results but it can also devastate too: especially if you can’t muster the output to achieve your pictured aesthetic and intellectual standards. It’s a tricky territory when it comes to writing: romance is secreted everywhere.

  150. demi-puppet

      Although, when it comes to art, there is a very real sense in which “doing things the hard way” is absolutely the wrong way. There should be some element of naturalness, of intuitive play.

  151. demi-puppet

      Although, when it comes to art, there is a very real sense in which “doing things the hard way” is absolutely the wrong way. There should be some element of naturalness, of intuitive play.

  152. Ken Baumann

      What’s your timeline? What are your numbers like?

  153. demi-puppet

      Bullshit. What you’re describing is childish, undisciplined passion. If a relationship fails because of your “passion” for art, then you’ve probably got some growing to do.

      “Writing is an inherently selfish act.”—I wish people would stop saying this.

  154. demi-puppet

      Bullshit. What you’re describing is childish, undisciplined passion. If a relationship fails because of your “passion” for art, then you’ve probably got some growing to do.

      “Writing is an inherently selfish act.”—I wish people would stop saying this.

  155. jereme

      eh, we are going to disagree here.

      all i know is what i know. i know i have seen the majestic commit suicide in gruesome abrupt fashion, some near the end of their natural tenures as humans.

      i know some people have mental illness which doesn’t allow them to change their mode of thought.

      there is the issue of awareness.

      but, yeah, i think most have the ability to change their path. i suppose.

      not all, though.

  156. darby

      passionate means something completely different to everyone. its relative. to some people its something worth flying a plane into towers for. for others its a corny mechanism to motivate themselves. keep telling yourself you are passionate about writing so you can feel passionate about something when there’s nothing there otherwise.

  157. darby

      passionate means something completely different to everyone. its relative. to some people its something worth flying a plane into towers for. for others its a corny mechanism to motivate themselves. keep telling yourself you are passionate about writing so you can feel passionate about something when there’s nothing there otherwise.

  158. jereme

      so demi-puppet you are saying you can do all things with the same amount of high intensity?

      that is bullshit. show me one thing.

      and yes, did i not say you had growing to do tacitly or are you too blunt to figure it out?

      reread it and hold your knee down this time.

      “I wish people would stop saying this.” are you going to yip all day like a bitch in heat or actually prove me wrong?

  159. jereme

      so demi-puppet you are saying you can do all things with the same amount of high intensity?

      that is bullshit. show me one thing.

      and yes, did i not say you had growing to do tacitly or are you too blunt to figure it out?

      reread it and hold your knee down this time.

      “I wish people would stop saying this.” are you going to yip all day like a bitch in heat or actually prove me wrong?

  160. Ken Baumann

      You’re right, we agree. I was absent minded with that comment; ‘anyone’.

  161. Ken Baumann

      David: this is fucking excellent and I need to digest a bit more, but would like to walk outside a bit beforehand. Thanks in advance, and I’ll talk back shortly.

  162. demi-puppet

      You said that true passion is consuming. Of course I can’t do everything with the same intensity. I’m just saying that I’m disciplined enough to write intensely without letting it consume me. I don’t let my passion become an excuse for why I didn’t pay my ex enough loving attention, for example.

  163. jereme

      darby that is a mock passion which is really a lie.

      i mean what you are saying is all emotions do not really exist.

      which i could agree with under different circumstances.

      but humans are a people of learned behavior.

      and emotional identification is part of that.

      so sure darby, passion is a lie you tell yourself because life sucks and you don’t want to confront yourself and fear honesty and etc.

      sure.

      lol.

  164. demi-puppet

      You said that true passion is consuming. Of course I can’t do everything with the same intensity. I’m just saying that I’m disciplined enough to write intensely without letting it consume me. I don’t let my passion become an excuse for why I didn’t pay my ex enough loving attention, for example.

  165. jereme

      darby that is a mock passion which is really a lie.

      i mean what you are saying is all emotions do not really exist.

      which i could agree with under different circumstances.

      but humans are a people of learned behavior.

      and emotional identification is part of that.

      so sure darby, passion is a lie you tell yourself because life sucks and you don’t want to confront yourself and fear honesty and etc.

      sure.

      lol.

  166. jereme

      so you can turn intensity on or off like a light switch?

      fuck that sounds like super hero status.

      i envy you.

  167. jereme

      so you can turn intensity on or off like a light switch?

      fuck that sounds like super hero status.

      i envy you.

  168. demi-puppet

      Pretty much, yeah. I’ve made it a point to develop that skill, though.

  169. demi-puppet

      Pretty much, yeah. I’ve made it a point to develop that skill, though.

  170. darby

      not saying all passion is mock passion, but there are levels i think. what are we referring to when we say “passion” in reference to ken’s post?

  171. darby

      not saying all passion is mock passion, but there are levels i think. what are we referring to when we say “passion” in reference to ken’s post?

  172. darby

      i feel like i am coming off as gloomy here. im actually in a good mood and feeling good about things. its hailing outside.

  173. darby

      i feel like i am coming off as gloomy here. im actually in a good mood and feeling good about things. its hailing outside.

  174. phm

      The best kind of passion might be false passion. There is an unlimited supply. I think passion overflows from writing to relationships. I think many of us don’t find our lovers as reciprocating as our favorite objects of worship and so let them go. Writing is not selfish. It wasn’t invented to be, at least. The ancients were trying to pass things on, so stop that nonsense. Writing is not mystical. It is not a privilege. And most writers think they are better than they are. If I can write one perfect sentence within one complete novel which I enjoy before I die, I win the writing game.

  175. phm

      The best kind of passion might be false passion. There is an unlimited supply. I think passion overflows from writing to relationships. I think many of us don’t find our lovers as reciprocating as our favorite objects of worship and so let them go. Writing is not selfish. It wasn’t invented to be, at least. The ancients were trying to pass things on, so stop that nonsense. Writing is not mystical. It is not a privilege. And most writers think they are better than they are. If I can write one perfect sentence within one complete novel which I enjoy before I die, I win the writing game.

  176. demi-puppet

      Those are some pretty low aims!

  177. demi-puppet

      Those are some pretty low aims!

  178. mimi

      Funny, I was going to say the same thing!

  179. phm

      And what of it? Show me a man who thinks he has done that and I’ll show you a born fool.

  180. phm

      And what of it? Show me a man who thinks he has done that and I’ll show you a born fool.

  181. Ken Baumann

      Bill Hicks.

  182. Steve Silberman

      Ken, excellent post! Thank you.

      I remember, in my 20s, when I wrote mostly poetry, waiting for the muse to arrive. It would come with a feeling of Things Putting Themselves Together, Patterns Emerging of Their Own Accord, and I would write. If I didn’t or couldn’t write just then, I was apt to forget. I had to grab the thread or the whole weave would never have the chance to exist. Exciting! (And I remember something my old teacher Allen Ginsberg told me: “If the muse comes to your bedside at night, don’t tell her you’ll fuck her later.”) Now I’m an old hack, having made a living writing for about 17 years now — and who can afford to wait for the muse? Inspiration, schminspiration. If 3000 words are due next week, I’d damn well better be writing them this week. Art as blood vs. art as play? What about art as work? Can it still be art? It better, because most of the working artists in this world — if you’re lucky enough to be paid for making art — have a certain amount of stuff they have to produce on deadline.

      But underneath that, the truth is that the muse still comes, or not. At certain times of day — many — I’m too stupid to be the “Steve Silberman” anyone wants to read. I’m flailing, unfocused. The pattern doth not cohere, which means that the Great Pattern doth not showeth itself in my weaving. So I keep at it. I get disgusted and take a walk… and She comes. There is no controlling her. All the metaphors are apt. When She comes, the art itself is more like blood, but the act of creating it feels more like play. To be in that wide open space where the music gives birth to itself! Just to live NEAR that place has been worth building the foundation of my life on my (crappy) art. Is it blood, play, or merely commerce? Yes. (But I also know when the commerce takes over and I’m just filling the air with crap.)

      About love: Like everyone, when I was young, I thought I’d meet the One and Only. And then I did. And after working out wonderfully for a while, it didn’t work out. So I moved on, through various relationships — some that had that “one and only” aura about them, and others that seemed more earthbound. After a few of both kinds, I’ve come to the conclusion that, while One and Only love can take you higher, it’s basically an illusion. If you’re lucky, it’s a mutual illusion, I guess. I don’t know. My parents had that kind of love, starting in highschool; they still had to evolve, grow, divorce, remarry each other fergawdsakes… and then my dad died suddenly and now my mom is figuring out, painfully, how to make it on her own. After having that kind of love blow up in my face a couple of times, I married a great guy who only seemed like the One and Only after years and years and years. What my relationship with Keith has that the others didn’t was a feeling that everything is workable. No disastrous apocalypses, no endlessly escalating tensions that can only be resolved with mindblowing sex. Just: friendship and affection, deepening over decades. A willingness to listen to each other, to be patient, to stay true to ourselves and this quietly beautiful thing we’ve built together. Play, blood? It’s the realest thing I know.

      Something like that also seems to be true of making art.

  183. jereme

      just because what the man said was funny doesn’t mean he was having fun or farting around.

      what i know of him says the contrary.

  184. jereme

      but good try :)

  185. jereme

      i ask because i can not reasonably find an answer to the question. to me, passion can only exist passionately.

      you said:

      “I think passion can just easily manifest in a long engagement with something as it can in a burst.”

      which prompted the thought/question.

      enlighten me.

  186. Ken Baumann

      Jazz & dance.

  187. jereme

      you believe the people of passion within the confines of “jazz” or “dance” truly view it in jest, as something for intellectual fun?

      now i think you are just fucking with me.

  188. Chu

      sounds like a bunch of people trying to convince themselves that not doing things the hard way is the better way and I disagree. either throw your entire being into what it is that you are doing or get the fuck out. this world is full of half-assers; we don’t need anymore.

  189. Ken Baumann

      No, not jest; I guess the answer is no, not at all. I was thinking Fun and not Jest, after your response to the Hicks posit.

      Jest is Fun but Fun is not just Jest.

      I think that passion has in it a sort of manic/massive fun, or manic/massive joy.

      I think that artists can have fun in modes of passion. Do you disagree?

      I think that passion, in my weird sense of the idea, is an endeavor or way of being that takes a lot of thought and action, a lot of consideration and application. I think that incredibly strong emotion can express itself in ways that are more a bedrock than a flood, if that makes sense. A metaphor: a fifty year relationship. A metaphor: fifty years of writing poetry. It may not be torrential, but dedication–to me–is also passionate.

  190. jereme

      “I think that artists can have fun in modes of passion. Do you disagree?”

      hmm, this question is a difficult thing to answer.

      i think i do disagree but i don’t know if i agree with it.

      if that makes sense.

      i only know my reality.

      passion is not fun.

      it is what derails me.

      it is the time when rarely am i aware until the landscape is sliding down around me.

      i know passion can only be expressed with ardor.

      your relationship seems to be a ruse. i would argue such a protracted relationship exists only because of the small, intense passionate moments along the way and the rest of the relationship is built around those, not the other way around.

      like i said, i am having a hard time understanding your thought process.

      i am not challenging you, but trying to learn.

      where is sean. he should be liable for an answer too.

  191. phm

      The biggest thing I’ve come to realize is that they were right about physical fitness being paramount and the key to a happy life. The better shape I get in, the better I feel about the world around me, and the more I feel I can contribute to it.

      After that, I think, like most people, I try to maintain Aristotle’s Golden Mean. It’s an effort to be a reasonable person.

  192. phm

      Guess I replied to the wrong comment. See above.

  193. darby

      no one is passionate about art.

  194. Ken Baumann

      Critics?

  195. Trey

      no one? not even one?

  196. jereme

      what the fuck does this even mean? “about art”?

  197. darby

      rather, what the fuck does this mean… “passionate” ?

      if you’re passionate, die for it, otherwise.

      if a parent is passionate about art, do they merely dabble in parenthood?

      wait, no, I mean everyone is passionate about art.

      wait no, i mean everyone is passionate about everything.

      everyone is completely passionate and dispassionate about everything and nothing.

  198. jereme

      parenthood is a burden. passion does not play.

  199. jereme

      but to be honest, darby, all asshole haberdashery aside, yes and yes.

      if one is passionate, then it is a consuming thing. their relationships will fail. things will suffer. a mind can only shift focus so many ways.

      i found it no surprise at awp that most the people there seemed to not have any significant relationship in their life.

      while my writing has suffered because i have spent more time with my relationship because i value the relationship more so than myself–and writing is inherently a selfish act.

      what part of “passionate” eludes you?

      think INTENSITY.

  200. demi-puppet

      This works both ways. Sometimes the “I MUST write!” stuff sounds like an artist convincing themselves -into- doing the work. There are those who can work w/ their whole being without all the excess pomp and cheerleading.

  201. demi-puppet

      Although, when it comes to art, there is a very real sense in which “doing things the hard way” is absolutely the wrong way. There should be some element of naturalness, of intuitive play.

  202. demi-puppet

      Bullshit. What you’re describing is childish, undisciplined passion. If a relationship fails because of your “passion” for art, then you’ve probably got some growing to do.

      “Writing is an inherently selfish act.”—I wish people would stop saying this.

  203. darby

      passionate means something completely different to everyone. its relative. to some people its something worth flying a plane into towers for. for others its a corny mechanism to motivate themselves. keep telling yourself you are passionate about writing so you can feel passionate about something when there’s nothing there otherwise.

  204. jereme

      so demi-puppet you are saying you can do all things with the same amount of high intensity?

      that is bullshit. show me one thing.

      and yes, did i not say you had growing to do tacitly or are you too blunt to figure it out?

      reread it and hold your knee down this time.

      “I wish people would stop saying this.” are you going to yip all day like a bitch in heat or actually prove me wrong?

  205. demi-puppet

      You said that true passion is consuming. Of course I can’t do everything with the same intensity. I’m just saying that I’m disciplined enough to write intensely without letting it consume me. I don’t let my passion become an excuse for why I didn’t pay my ex enough loving attention, for example.

  206. jereme

      darby that is a mock passion which is really a lie.

      i mean what you are saying is all emotions do not really exist.

      which i could agree with under different circumstances.

      but humans are a people of learned behavior.

      and emotional identification is part of that.

      so sure darby, passion is a lie you tell yourself because life sucks and you don’t want to confront yourself and fear honesty and etc.

      sure.

      lol.

  207. jereme

      so you can turn intensity on or off like a light switch?

      fuck that sounds like super hero status.

      i envy you.

  208. demi-puppet

      Pretty much, yeah. I’ve made it a point to develop that skill, though.

  209. darby

      not saying all passion is mock passion, but there are levels i think. what are we referring to when we say “passion” in reference to ken’s post?

  210. darby

      i feel like i am coming off as gloomy here. im actually in a good mood and feeling good about things. its hailing outside.

  211. phm

      The best kind of passion might be false passion. There is an unlimited supply. I think passion overflows from writing to relationships. I think many of us don’t find our lovers as reciprocating as our favorite objects of worship and so let them go. Writing is not selfish. It wasn’t invented to be, at least. The ancients were trying to pass things on, so stop that nonsense. Writing is not mystical. It is not a privilege. And most writers think they are better than they are. If I can write one perfect sentence within one complete novel which I enjoy before I die, I win the writing game.

  212. demi-puppet

      Those are some pretty low aims!

  213. phm

      And what of it? Show me a man who thinks he has done that and I’ll show you a born fool.

  214. jereme

      darby,

      if passion is intensity, how can there be levels? how is only +3 intensity intense when the limit is 300?

      passion is intensity.

      once again i don’t understand how unbridled intensity can exist in jest, in folly, in fun. the existence of passion changes the outcome of your aim, fun cannot exist in passion.

      i respect where ken and demi-puppet are coming from, i just don’t understand it logically or otherwise.

      but we can leave it at a disagreement. i was simply trying to learn a different mode of thought (for me).

      anyways what’s up darby! i missed your type type.

  215. jereme

      darby,

      if passion is intensity, how can there be levels? how is only +3 intensity intense when the limit is 300?

      passion is intensity.

      once again i don’t understand how unbridled intensity can exist in jest, in folly, in fun. the existence of passion changes the outcome of your aim, fun cannot exist in passion.

      i respect where ken and demi-puppet are coming from, i just don’t understand it logically or otherwise.

      but we can leave it at a disagreement. i was simply trying to learn a different mode of thought (for me).

      anyways what’s up darby! i missed your type type.

  216. darby

      hi jereme!

  217. darby

      hi jereme!

  218. Ken Baumann

      I agree about keeping in shape, treating the body as it’s part of you and not just a transport for the brain.

  219. Ken Baumann

      I agree about keeping in shape, treating the body as it’s part of you and not just a transport for the brain.

  220. Ken Baumann

      Steve,

      Thank you, first and foremost.

      I certainly flail among the seeming barriers of art, work, play, commerce. I find that tension and pressure pretty much always sets me up to perform at full capacity, but it may not feel as good in the moment. Or maybe there’s less cognition of the moment, in the moment. More transparent = better, more channelled work, but less pleasure because you can’t stop and smell the roses, so to speak. Allen’s advice is hilarious and wonderful. Most of the time, I wish I had more of a deadline, more pressure to complete things and do my best. I suppose that will come in due time, if I keep up a certain pace and care, and that I best enjoy my sort of leisure now. Do you agree?

      As far as love goes, that One and Only feeling, in my experience, hasn’t necessarily dissolved as an illusion but sort of faded and then gradually mutated into a different perception of how myself, and my behavior around those I care about most. What I value most is a devoted and honest and present love, and that’s what I try to practice. Yes: friendship foremost, and a calm, soft affection.

      Love is art.

  221. Ken Baumann

      Steve,

      Thank you, first and foremost.

      I certainly flail among the seeming barriers of art, work, play, commerce. I find that tension and pressure pretty much always sets me up to perform at full capacity, but it may not feel as good in the moment. Or maybe there’s less cognition of the moment, in the moment. More transparent = better, more channelled work, but less pleasure because you can’t stop and smell the roses, so to speak. Allen’s advice is hilarious and wonderful. Most of the time, I wish I had more of a deadline, more pressure to complete things and do my best. I suppose that will come in due time, if I keep up a certain pace and care, and that I best enjoy my sort of leisure now. Do you agree?

      As far as love goes, that One and Only feeling, in my experience, hasn’t necessarily dissolved as an illusion but sort of faded and then gradually mutated into a different perception of how myself, and my behavior around those I care about most. What I value most is a devoted and honest and present love, and that’s what I try to practice. Yes: friendship foremost, and a calm, soft affection.

      Love is art.

  222. Ken Baumann

      David:

      Yes and yes. I agree with you, esp. regarding the self-consuming and ever slinking snake of writing-for-writing’s sake. Increasingly, as I feel more surrounded and called at by media and ephemera of all kinds (entertainment, art, advertising, propaganda, infrastructural byproduct, light and noise and sound and screams and coughs), I’m more conflicted about the seemingly golden and perfect moral of Creating, of Producing. Like: I know the ego/high processes are incredibly good at perpetuating current behavior, e.g. lazy stays lazy, but I am really hung up on the idea of revolution as withdrawal, silence as a definitive and artistic movement. Sontag’s essay on silence is great, but she too seems sucked into the Golden Rule of art: Make Shit. Produce. Create. Be fearless and without fail.

      As far as writing as self-entertainment goes: I’m not necessarily equating that to play, in my mind. I do attach an end to writing, even if it feels purely fun, purely playful; I know it’s going somewhere and will, has to be, read. For the most part. If I think it’s worthy. (If the sculpture is either solid and close to perfect in surface, or webbed with cracks and just about to collapse: these are the preferred signs of a Finished Product)

      You’re right: romance is sort of inevitable. Which, to loop around and salivate for the tail right in front of me, could just be the reason why I perpetuate in the first place, in either direction, inward or outward, neither/or.

  223. Ken Baumann

      David:

      Yes and yes. I agree with you, esp. regarding the self-consuming and ever slinking snake of writing-for-writing’s sake. Increasingly, as I feel more surrounded and called at by media and ephemera of all kinds (entertainment, art, advertising, propaganda, infrastructural byproduct, light and noise and sound and screams and coughs), I’m more conflicted about the seemingly golden and perfect moral of Creating, of Producing. Like: I know the ego/high processes are incredibly good at perpetuating current behavior, e.g. lazy stays lazy, but I am really hung up on the idea of revolution as withdrawal, silence as a definitive and artistic movement. Sontag’s essay on silence is great, but she too seems sucked into the Golden Rule of art: Make Shit. Produce. Create. Be fearless and without fail.

      As far as writing as self-entertainment goes: I’m not necessarily equating that to play, in my mind. I do attach an end to writing, even if it feels purely fun, purely playful; I know it’s going somewhere and will, has to be, read. For the most part. If I think it’s worthy. (If the sculpture is either solid and close to perfect in surface, or webbed with cracks and just about to collapse: these are the preferred signs of a Finished Product)

      You’re right: romance is sort of inevitable. Which, to loop around and salivate for the tail right in front of me, could just be the reason why I perpetuate in the first place, in either direction, inward or outward, neither/or.

  224. jereme

      darby,

      if passion is intensity, how can there be levels? how is only +3 intensity intense when the limit is 300?

      passion is intensity.

      once again i don’t understand how unbridled intensity can exist in jest, in folly, in fun. the existence of passion changes the outcome of your aim, fun cannot exist in passion.

      i respect where ken and demi-puppet are coming from, i just don’t understand it logically or otherwise.

      but we can leave it at a disagreement. i was simply trying to learn a different mode of thought (for me).

      anyways what’s up darby! i missed your type type.

  225. darby

      hi jereme!

  226. Steve Silberman

      Beautiful, Ken. Thank you. And thank you for your honest and graceful friendship.

  227. Steve Silberman

      Beautiful, Ken. Thank you. And thank you for your honest and graceful friendship.

  228. Ken Baumann

      I agree about keeping in shape, treating the body as it’s part of you and not just a transport for the brain.

  229. Ken Baumann

      Steve,

      Thank you, first and foremost.

      I certainly flail among the seeming barriers of art, work, play, commerce. I find that tension and pressure pretty much always sets me up to perform at full capacity, but it may not feel as good in the moment. Or maybe there’s less cognition of the moment, in the moment. More transparent = better, more channelled work, but less pleasure because you can’t stop and smell the roses, so to speak. Allen’s advice is hilarious and wonderful. Most of the time, I wish I had more of a deadline, more pressure to complete things and do my best. I suppose that will come in due time, if I keep up a certain pace and care, and that I best enjoy my sort of leisure now. Do you agree?

      As far as love goes, that One and Only feeling, in my experience, hasn’t necessarily dissolved as an illusion but sort of faded and then gradually mutated into a different perception of how myself, and my behavior around those I care about most. What I value most is a devoted and honest and present love, and that’s what I try to practice. Yes: friendship foremost, and a calm, soft affection.

      Love is art.

  230. Ken Baumann

      David:

      Yes and yes. I agree with you, esp. regarding the self-consuming and ever slinking snake of writing-for-writing’s sake. Increasingly, as I feel more surrounded and called at by media and ephemera of all kinds (entertainment, art, advertising, propaganda, infrastructural byproduct, light and noise and sound and screams and coughs), I’m more conflicted about the seemingly golden and perfect moral of Creating, of Producing. Like: I know the ego/high processes are incredibly good at perpetuating current behavior, e.g. lazy stays lazy, but I am really hung up on the idea of revolution as withdrawal, silence as a definitive and artistic movement. Sontag’s essay on silence is great, but she too seems sucked into the Golden Rule of art: Make Shit. Produce. Create. Be fearless and without fail.

      As far as writing as self-entertainment goes: I’m not necessarily equating that to play, in my mind. I do attach an end to writing, even if it feels purely fun, purely playful; I know it’s going somewhere and will, has to be, read. For the most part. If I think it’s worthy. (If the sculpture is either solid and close to perfect in surface, or webbed with cracks and just about to collapse: these are the preferred signs of a Finished Product)

      You’re right: romance is sort of inevitable. Which, to loop around and salivate for the tail right in front of me, could just be the reason why I perpetuate in the first place, in either direction, inward or outward, neither/or.

  231. Steve Silberman

      Beautiful, Ken. Thank you. And thank you for your honest and graceful friendship.

  232. David

      Ken, absolutely, dude, I am with you. The fun of writing is a powerful thing, the pleasure of good creation, so rare. But I think that’s just it: it is rare and failing to create well can inflict its damages too. Emil Cioran argues that the motives are all are driven by the wish to be praised. His point, actually, is not that we’re inherent egoists in which all our actions search out approbation but, rather, like Nietzsche arguing we cannot contemplate our own deaths, that we can’t contemplate our own dispensability when we do things. I’m not sure whether I agree with it or not – still churning it over, it is a powerful point but once you’re committed to it, it changes a lot of things about how you think and do – but what I will say is that even the most private or throwaway activities, including those we do, forget and never remember, have a relevance to us, for a time. So writing for fun is a way to adapt to a climate I think that not only insists on perpetual fun as the meaning of life (while negating it viciously) but also insists we must always and forever *cope* – that collapse, deflected to the system, rather than sacrificed on the system’s behalf in the personal (ie. breakdowns) is preferable. I like the idea of writing as fun but I also like the idea of writing as somehow a commitment to everyone’s sake. I think the thing writing gives is the capacity to try and make the inevitable different. That isn’t to say there isn’t alternative without writing, or even for things that dont have language, but I think that writing for writing only is to be inevitable for inevitability, which misses the point of what inevitability is: it doesn’t care or not care if you sign up to it. My point being that the argument for writing for fun only is sort of like making revolution for the right to never have to make a revolution again. If the romance of writing is unavoidable, let’s dare to imagine it leads somewhere, you know? I don’t mean becoming ruined by your writing (although again I don’t think writing is a natural ecology: it can’t be managed for sustainability only, at least without sacrifice, and this is a major ethical quandary authors make) though perhaps some will. I mean looking outward from writing as you fall under its deepening spell.

  233. David

      Ken, absolutely, dude, I am with you. The fun of writing is a powerful thing, the pleasure of good creation, so rare. But I think that’s just it: it is rare and failing to create well can inflict its damages too. Emil Cioran argues that the motives are all are driven by the wish to be praised. His point, actually, is not that we’re inherent egoists in which all our actions search out approbation but, rather, like Nietzsche arguing we cannot contemplate our own deaths, that we can’t contemplate our own dispensability when we do things. I’m not sure whether I agree with it or not – still churning it over, it is a powerful point but once you’re committed to it, it changes a lot of things about how you think and do – but what I will say is that even the most private or throwaway activities, including those we do, forget and never remember, have a relevance to us, for a time. So writing for fun is a way to adapt to a climate I think that not only insists on perpetual fun as the meaning of life (while negating it viciously) but also insists we must always and forever *cope* – that collapse, deflected to the system, rather than sacrificed on the system’s behalf in the personal (ie. breakdowns) is preferable. I like the idea of writing as fun but I also like the idea of writing as somehow a commitment to everyone’s sake. I think the thing writing gives is the capacity to try and make the inevitable different. That isn’t to say there isn’t alternative without writing, or even for things that dont have language, but I think that writing for writing only is to be inevitable for inevitability, which misses the point of what inevitability is: it doesn’t care or not care if you sign up to it. My point being that the argument for writing for fun only is sort of like making revolution for the right to never have to make a revolution again. If the romance of writing is unavoidable, let’s dare to imagine it leads somewhere, you know? I don’t mean becoming ruined by your writing (although again I don’t think writing is a natural ecology: it can’t be managed for sustainability only, at least without sacrifice, and this is a major ethical quandary authors make) though perhaps some will. I mean looking outward from writing as you fall under its deepening spell.

  234. David

      Ken, absolutely, dude, I am with you. The fun of writing is a powerful thing, the pleasure of good creation, so rare. But I think that’s just it: it is rare and failing to create well can inflict its damages too. Emil Cioran argues that the motives are all are driven by the wish to be praised. His point, actually, is not that we’re inherent egoists in which all our actions search out approbation but, rather, like Nietzsche arguing we cannot contemplate our own deaths, that we can’t contemplate our own dispensability when we do things. I’m not sure whether I agree with it or not – still churning it over, it is a powerful point but once you’re committed to it, it changes a lot of things about how you think and do – but what I will say is that even the most private or throwaway activities, including those we do, forget and never remember, have a relevance to us, for a time. So writing for fun is a way to adapt to a climate I think that not only insists on perpetual fun as the meaning of life (while negating it viciously) but also insists we must always and forever *cope* – that collapse, deflected to the system, rather than sacrificed on the system’s behalf in the personal (ie. breakdowns) is preferable. I like the idea of writing as fun but I also like the idea of writing as somehow a commitment to everyone’s sake. I think the thing writing gives is the capacity to try and make the inevitable different. That isn’t to say there isn’t alternative without writing, or even for things that dont have language, but I think that writing for writing only is to be inevitable for inevitability, which misses the point of what inevitability is: it doesn’t care or not care if you sign up to it. My point being that the argument for writing for fun only is sort of like making revolution for the right to never have to make a revolution again. If the romance of writing is unavoidable, let’s dare to imagine it leads somewhere, you know? I don’t mean becoming ruined by your writing (although again I don’t think writing is a natural ecology: it can’t be managed for sustainability only, at least without sacrifice, and this is a major ethical quandary authors make) though perhaps some will. I mean looking outward from writing as you fall under its deepening spell.

  235. Ken Baumann

      All excellent, and a fair amount to chew on. I’ll be chewing. Thanks again.

  236. Ken Baumann

      All excellent, and a fair amount to chew on. I’ll be chewing. Thanks again.

  237. Ken Baumann

      All excellent, and a fair amount to chew on. I’ll be chewing. Thanks again.

  238. Sami

      It’s charming, funny how I happened upon your page.
      I’m going to say that I love the way you think, the way you dare, and thank you.
      You remind me that as humans we are entitled to the such. It’s raw and beautiful. I had forgotten
      and given it all up. Can you believe? It’s on the verge of being mental suicide how I had given it up and watch it implode before my eyes. It was not humility; it was cowardice; and I am not proud. In these moments, I awaken… and it’s minds like yours who nudge me on.

      I’m also going to say that how all around uncannily & understandingly simple and almost unfortunate is it to discover the depth of one’s own soul in so few words…. ;). I did not realize it was this masochistic artistic fetish one suffocates for worsened at the need for integrity of the art. How miserably blessed we such seem. As I understand it, it’s a Faustian longing we have…..I don’t know how we end up this way. Maybe some of us have seen a glimmer of the infinite and cannot but help to reach at the sky for it. And then we live loving the complex amidst the simple, and the simple amidst the complex, cursing the futility of the need burning at each moment’s core…. Maybe we are those who are the most impatient. We have seen, need no convincing, and strain ourselves for it and none other…… it’s so humourous how serious it all actually feels.

  239. Sami

      It’s charming, funny how I happened upon your page.
      I’m going to say that I love the way you think, the way you dare, and thank you.
      You remind me that as humans we are entitled to the such. It’s raw and beautiful. I had forgotten
      and given it all up. Can you believe? It’s on the verge of being mental suicide how I had given it up and watch it implode before my eyes. It was not humility; it was cowardice; and I am not proud. In these moments, I awaken… and it’s minds like yours who nudge me on.

      I’m also going to say that how all around uncannily & understandingly simple and almost unfortunate is it to discover the depth of one’s own soul in so few words…. ;). I did not realize it was this masochistic artistic fetish one suffocates for worsened at the need for integrity of the art. How miserably blessed we such seem. As I understand it, it’s a Faustian longing we have…..I don’t know how we end up this way. Maybe some of us have seen a glimmer of the infinite and cannot but help to reach at the sky for it. And then we live loving the complex amidst the simple, and the simple amidst the complex, cursing the futility of the need burning at each moment’s core…. Maybe we are those who are the most impatient. We have seen, need no convincing, and strain ourselves for it and none other…… it’s so humourous how serious it all actually feels.

  240. alan rossi

      Jereme: I’m late to this, but i don’t understand: “fun cannot exist in passion.” this (along with other formulations of passion here) makes passion seem as if it is an emotionless state, even thought you talk about emotions earlier. here, passion seems a state that is one of “intensity” without any actual feeling or thought behind it, only sensations, the sensation of what people seem to be calling intensity. the formulation of passion here is sort of similar to what Nietzsche attacks in Schopenhauer’s formulation of Will. passion is not one thing; it is not just unbridled intensity. it is not even just intensity. it is a thing made up of many other affects: sensations, thoughts, feelings, is how Nietzsche might break it down. it is a complex state, i would argue; it might even be a resultant state. this leads me to the idea of passion and love. when a person is passionate about someone else (that early relationship stage of blindness and sex) there is certainly a great degree of fun involved. and i would say that the fun is inherent in the passion. what is so fun is being passionately engaged with someone other than oneself; what is fun is experiencing that passion. along with this, there are all these other feelings and thoughts and sensations which contribute to the passion. one can be passionately angry, as well, and this would (to some) not be any fun. but to limit passion to unbridled intensity is to leave out a lot.

      also, i’ve been thinking about the duality: passion or play in writing/art. i don’t mean to be flippant (i made some other answer earlier), but both, or either, or none seem fine/good. i understand the question, but the real problem for me isn’t one or the other but that we so like to break things apart like this, and in so doing create the problem. amy’s comment seems apt, as does david’s.

      it was fun, but not passionate, to read these comments. good thread.

  241. alan rossi

      Jereme: I’m late to this, but i don’t understand: “fun cannot exist in passion.” this (along with other formulations of passion here) makes passion seem as if it is an emotionless state, even thought you talk about emotions earlier. here, passion seems a state that is one of “intensity” without any actual feeling or thought behind it, only sensations, the sensation of what people seem to be calling intensity. the formulation of passion here is sort of similar to what Nietzsche attacks in Schopenhauer’s formulation of Will. passion is not one thing; it is not just unbridled intensity. it is not even just intensity. it is a thing made up of many other affects: sensations, thoughts, feelings, is how Nietzsche might break it down. it is a complex state, i would argue; it might even be a resultant state. this leads me to the idea of passion and love. when a person is passionate about someone else (that early relationship stage of blindness and sex) there is certainly a great degree of fun involved. and i would say that the fun is inherent in the passion. what is so fun is being passionately engaged with someone other than oneself; what is fun is experiencing that passion. along with this, there are all these other feelings and thoughts and sensations which contribute to the passion. one can be passionately angry, as well, and this would (to some) not be any fun. but to limit passion to unbridled intensity is to leave out a lot.

      also, i’ve been thinking about the duality: passion or play in writing/art. i don’t mean to be flippant (i made some other answer earlier), but both, or either, or none seem fine/good. i understand the question, but the real problem for me isn’t one or the other but that we so like to break things apart like this, and in so doing create the problem. amy’s comment seems apt, as does david’s.

      it was fun, but not passionate, to read these comments. good thread.

  242. Paul

      Thank you P.H.

      Now that you’ve defined writing for everyone, all while exhibiting your usual and much expected quasi-Bloomian aura, I’m sure we are all far too enlightened to go on living.

      Also, I’ve never really viewed writing as a game. Though, your affiliation with your own yawn-evoking self-produced literary theory systems will probably outweight anything I have to say.

      It seems that passionate writing, for you, is both nowhere and something that only you can identify with–by submitting to your own value system, in which “passion is false.” That communicates many things.

      Low aims, indeed.

  243. Paul

      Thank you P.H.

      Now that you’ve defined writing for everyone, all while exhibiting your usual and much expected quasi-Bloomian aura, I’m sure we are all far too enlightened to go on living.

      Also, I’ve never really viewed writing as a game. Though, your affiliation with your own yawn-evoking self-produced literary theory systems will probably outweight anything I have to say.

      It seems that passionate writing, for you, is both nowhere and something that only you can identify with–by submitting to your own value system, in which “passion is false.” That communicates many things.

      Low aims, indeed.

  244. Paul

      Also worth noting:

      That hip little quote you provided, “Show me a man who thinks that he has done that and I will show you a born fool” . . .

      Doesn’t that immediately indicate your subpar understanding of yourself as well as your capabilities as a writer. It was obviously a response to Demi-Puppet, but what exactly was it responding to? To Demi-Puppet’s claims of your low aiming, which I pointed out above? Or that final sentence in your first ego-graph?

      “If I can write one perfect sentence within one complete novel which I enjoy before I die, I win the writing game.”

      If that is simultaneously both your greatest desire, as well as something you would just as soon attribute to a “foolish” subject, does that not, in fact, make you the fool?

      What are you trying to communicate here?–other than that you are a glib little pissant?

  245. Paul

      Also worth noting:

      That hip little quote you provided, “Show me a man who thinks that he has done that and I will show you a born fool” . . .

      Doesn’t that immediately indicate your subpar understanding of yourself as well as your capabilities as a writer. It was obviously a response to Demi-Puppet, but what exactly was it responding to? To Demi-Puppet’s claims of your low aiming, which I pointed out above? Or that final sentence in your first ego-graph?

      “If I can write one perfect sentence within one complete novel which I enjoy before I die, I win the writing game.”

      If that is simultaneously both your greatest desire, as well as something you would just as soon attribute to a “foolish” subject, does that not, in fact, make you the fool?

      What are you trying to communicate here?–other than that you are a glib little pissant?

  246. Sami

      It’s charming, funny how I happened upon your page.
      I’m going to say that I love the way you think, the way you dare, and thank you.
      You remind me that as humans we are entitled to the such. It’s raw and beautiful. I had forgotten
      and given it all up. Can you believe? It’s on the verge of being mental suicide how I had given it up and watch it implode before my eyes. It was not humility; it was cowardice; and I am not proud. In these moments, I awaken… and it’s minds like yours who nudge me on.

      I’m also going to say that how all around uncannily & understandingly simple and almost unfortunate is it to discover the depth of one’s own soul in so few words…. ;). I did not realize it was this masochistic artistic fetish one suffocates for worsened at the need for integrity of the art. How miserably blessed we such seem. As I understand it, it’s a Faustian longing we have…..I don’t know how we end up this way. Maybe some of us have seen a glimmer of the infinite and cannot but help to reach at the sky for it. And then we live loving the complex amidst the simple, and the simple amidst the complex, cursing the futility of the need burning at each moment’s core…. Maybe we are those who are the most impatient. We have seen, need no convincing, and strain ourselves for it and none other…… it’s so humourous how serious it all actually feels.

  247. alan rossi

      Jereme: I’m late to this, but i don’t understand: “fun cannot exist in passion.” this (along with other formulations of passion here) makes passion seem as if it is an emotionless state, even thought you talk about emotions earlier. here, passion seems a state that is one of “intensity” without any actual feeling or thought behind it, only sensations, the sensation of what people seem to be calling intensity. the formulation of passion here is sort of similar to what Nietzsche attacks in Schopenhauer’s formulation of Will. passion is not one thing; it is not just unbridled intensity. it is not even just intensity. it is a thing made up of many other affects: sensations, thoughts, feelings, is how Nietzsche might break it down. it is a complex state, i would argue; it might even be a resultant state. this leads me to the idea of passion and love. when a person is passionate about someone else (that early relationship stage of blindness and sex) there is certainly a great degree of fun involved. and i would say that the fun is inherent in the passion. what is so fun is being passionately engaged with someone other than oneself; what is fun is experiencing that passion. along with this, there are all these other feelings and thoughts and sensations which contribute to the passion. one can be passionately angry, as well, and this would (to some) not be any fun. but to limit passion to unbridled intensity is to leave out a lot.

      also, i’ve been thinking about the duality: passion or play in writing/art. i don’t mean to be flippant (i made some other answer earlier), but both, or either, or none seem fine/good. i understand the question, but the real problem for me isn’t one or the other but that we so like to break things apart like this, and in so doing create the problem. amy’s comment seems apt, as does david’s.

      it was fun, but not passionate, to read these comments. good thread.

  248. Paul Cunningham

      Thank you P.H.

      Now that you’ve defined writing for everyone, all while exhibiting your usual and much expected quasi-Bloomian aura, I’m sure we are all far too enlightened to go on living.

      Also, I’ve never really viewed writing as a game. Though, your affiliation with your own yawn-evoking self-produced literary theory systems will probably outweight anything I have to say.

      It seems that passionate writing, for you, is both nowhere and something that only you can identify with–by submitting to your own value system, in which “passion is false.” That communicates many things.

      Low aims, indeed.

  249. Paul Cunningham

      Also worth noting:

      That hip little quote you provided, “Show me a man who thinks that he has done that and I will show you a born fool” . . .

      Doesn’t that immediately indicate your subpar understanding of yourself as well as your capabilities as a writer. It was obviously a response to Demi-Puppet, but what exactly was it responding to? To Demi-Puppet’s claims of your low aiming, which I pointed out above? Or that final sentence in your first ego-graph?

      “If I can write one perfect sentence within one complete novel which I enjoy before I die, I win the writing game.”

      If that is simultaneously both your greatest desire, as well as something you would just as soon attribute to a “foolish” subject, does that not, in fact, make you the fool?

      What are you trying to communicate here?–other than that you are a glib little pissant?