[ SECRET POST #2615 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2615 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 074 secrets from Secret Submission Post #374.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[dreemyweird]

There may just be some truth in the saying that art is condensed unhappiness. Not necessarily "an escape", but I've often noticed that art is used by many as a way to get rid of their misery.

I'd be slightly resentful, too, if something like this happened to me. I've never experienced this - IDK, maybe I'm too troubled a person and I've never really been happy (which is a disturbing thought) - but it sure would be a pity if my being happy meant my not writing any fanfic/meta.

Still, I'm very glad you are in a good place, and I think that ultimately, it's the only thing that matters. Happiness>>>>>the ability to write fanfic, always.

[intrigueing]

There may just be some truth in the saying that art is condensed unhappiness.

Sorry, but...that might be the biggest drippy load of bullshit I have ever heard. Dunno who specifically said that if it's a quote, but sounds like the type of thing that cranky old friendless stop-having-fun men who have their heads all up in their asses about how ~serious~ they are say.

Art is not condensed unhappiness. I dunno if it's ever anything that singular, but if it's condensed anything, it's condensed feeling, both positive and negative. For me personally, (and a lot of people I know, and a lot of writers and artists I have read), the need to write always comes either when I'm so happy I want to put it into words and forms to make something out of it, or when I'm so miserable or angry I want to do the same thing to make it intelligible and at least partially external, or when I'm so amused I want to share the hilarity.

[dreemyweird]

Many people said this, but I was quoting Lidiya Ginzburg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidiya_Ginzburg). Whose life was kinda tough, which might have influenced her views. Also, she was a Russian literary critic, and there is a certain Dostoyevsky ame slave flair about Russian literary criticism.

But I didn't actually mean to agree with her, I merely said that it seems to be a popular incentive. It certainly isn't the only one.

(It isn't the incentive in my case, either. I seem to write out of... an urge to write, really. It has nothing to do with my emotional state.)

[intrigueing]

Ugh, well, I just really strongly hate the tendency of authors and artists who go around going "IT'S ALL ABOUT MISERY." I've just had to slog through so much of that shit in school that I'm pretty much completely fed up right to the neck with it. (The attitude drove me to quit my college literary magazine in frustration last fall too.)

But oh, I now feel hypocritical because as soon as you said "Russian" I was like oh duh Dostoyevsky even before you mentioned Dostoyevsky, and then I felt all shallow for stereotyping Russian literary attitudes... <_<

[dreemyweird]

I get the sentiment, actually, and share it to some extent. I had once taken a course on Russian literature, though I had already known the subject very well. And the teacher was positively obsessed with the sufferings of the writers. I was seething with anger whenever she brought up the literature of the twentieth century, because I knew that in truth there was much more to these people (Mandelstam and Blok in particular) than their misery, but she insisted on talking about this misery only. I used to joke that "I don't know what writer we are going to study next, but I already know that he suffered a lot and died a horrible death".

So, to be fair, it really is a pervasive attitude typical of the Russian school of literary criticism. (That teacher is by no means the only one). But admittedly, it has a lot to do with the history of the twentieth century. Like, there isn't much to be cheerful about, especially considering the fact that almost every writer was treated abominably and suffered a lot. Mandelstam did die in a concentration camp, half-mad and starved, having exchanged his only coat for a kilogram of sugar which was then promptly stolen from him. Blok did die of starvation.

And it does exist outside of Russia, too, and I do dislike it. But it is also true that many people do write because they are unhappy; and that happiness may actually reduce one's productivity.

I guess Ginzburg's saying should be paraphrased as "for some people, art is condensed unhappiness".

[intrigueing]

Yeah IA with that, especially in the context you talk about. And I think it's absolutely (and powerfully) true. Just not the universal truth.

[(Anonymous)]

I took that quote to be an individual thing; that for some people, it's true. I know for me it is. I identify very much with OP. For me it's not a "drippy load of bullshit" at all and find your attitude pretty insulting.

Art, feelings, life, is different for everyone. It's awesome that you have your art tied up in general feelings but for some it is very much tied up in one particular or type of feeling, and yes for some people that is unhappiness.

[intrigueing]

I absolutely think the same. Which is why I said it can also be for unhappiness later in my comment. Apologies that I didn't clarify that the "feelings" can be concentrated more specifically for different people. I see now that I didn't really write this comment very well due to my knee-jerk impatience with this sentiment.

It's the idea that ALL art is JUST unhappiness, for EVERYONE, and never say, joy or amusement or any other positive emotion or more complex motive, that really, really annoys me and sounds like extreme narrow-mindedness that isn't much more sophisticated than "sadness is happy for deep people" to paraphrase Sally Sparrow.

[dreemyweird]

^Yes, I can agree with that. And this

sadness is happy for deep people

is brilliant.

[intrigueing]

It's a quote from the Doctor Who episode "Blink". ;) I actually like the character who says it a lot, but only because she's young and kind of silly. I hate that Moffat writes such great zingers when I just want to dislike him across the board.

[(Anonymous)]

" I hate that Moffat writes such great zingers when I just want to dislike him across the board."

+1,000,000

[(Anonymous)]

It's ridiculously pretentious.

[ketita]

I think that's very true for some people. I know that even my father, the height of his artistic creativity was during a time when he was unhappy and stressed and working very hard.

Oddly enough, I'm kind of the opposite. When I'm happy and excited, I get artistic rushes and will paint/write happily for hours. But when I'm stressed or depressed, I usually don't feel like I have any creativity at all.