An artist’s soul is tortured? Fuck you it is. The artist is a thing of pity that everyone tries to understand because at some point they were tortured by what they wanted to create, and failed. So when they see an artist and his art sucks they assume his soul is tortured and his life is a breathing piece of art that is about to happen. The suffering artist is supported, because his suffering might make some money at some point, but really he’s a poser that has no idea about suffering. If his suffering wasn’t relieved through his art, then what the fuck is he trying to do.
But the writer, ah, the writer isn’t a tortured soul, he’s just a dick, a cynic. There is a logical sequence to words that is taught as if it were mathematic. Follow the steps, grow your thought tree and everything will turn out. It’s not a big deal. There’s no aesthetic quality to your “art” it’s just words on a blank page. Anyone can fucking do that. No the writer is just a dick. And his alcoholism is just another reason to hate him, it’s too easy to think that a simple task of pounding out letters could be consider art, could be considered a medium worth pursuing…
Fuck you!
No a writer’s task is to be a worker. To do what he’s told. Make the money available to you by your “trade.” You could do copy editing, or better yet, do the ticker beat at some dyeing newspaper. Yup that will release the demons in your soul that made you think there was something to these words, and the expression that they could take. Nope, you’re not tortured. You’re just a writer.
And at some point you will die, and everything that you wrote that made us believe that life was worth living will become public property and we won’t even have to pay to hang your words on our wall. And at the time, we won’t have to deal with your insightful dissection of society. We can laugh it off as part of life, part of your break down, just before you fell completely, hopelessly into your alcoholism.
Fact of the matter is that there is a mathematical quality to words. They go in order. And order is a semblance of reason and reason means that there is a right and a wrong. If I can take you from point A to point B with words, then it is right and you have agreed.
And yes, I just edited that sentence and added a comma. What’s it to you? Would you have cared if I hadn’t. Probably not. Because that would mean that starting a sentence with a conjunction was wrong, and there was a purpose to all of this. Therefore, there would be a wrong way to write that sentence and I would have failed.
Would you consider me tortured then?
No. I’d be some dipshit that didn’t know that sentences begin with a subject and not with conjunctions. But I love starting phrases with an idea that doesn’t make complete sense. Half thoughts that force me to wonder what you are thinking. And what you will think by the next piece of “art” that I give to you. Stepping stones across the divide. Logical order. Worker bee. Fuck you!
The fact is, I have a 4 year degree in this bull shit and I haven’t made more than a few hundred dollars pounding out words into sequence about peace, love, and revolution. No one looks at me and sees the tortured artist. Nope, I’m just some dick alcoholic that can’t get his shit together long enough to actually focus on his craft and create something that would sell. That’s all it takes. Just some focus. Just paint your canvas and let your words move your audience in a way that Picasso did. It’s easy, just do it.
Fuck you Nike!
Nope.
Here’s a Mason jar full of Jameson to all of you out there pounding out words in a logical manner only to start a sentence with a conjunction because it felt right. Here’s a raised fist because no revolution ever started without the words of some artist telling the people what to think, logically.
Yup. Here’s to writers.
P. L. and R.