Strung out across a great many chasms....
Once a man begins to think freely, and to challenge every standard and expectation, and to claim his right to test each for fitness , the whole of his life becomes infected, and there can never really be any return to health.
It's art scrutiny that's to blame. It's a shadow film of lint that we habitually try to brush off our sleeves. Right now, at least in this country, it is in such stark opposition to convention that it can be easily ignored, but it's not going anyplace for any of us, and if we let it start chillin' around us, we get very sick, very quickly.
Of course, this is a disorder that potentially is hugely good on balance. Like getting the chickenpox is supposed to be, but without the ageism. Or, then again, maybe it's more like alcoholism, a made up disease that serves to excuse us from having to deal with the the facts of human nature: People like to get drunk. They always will. And the how's, why's, when's and whether's of that are as unclean as humanity itself. Sure, some answers are truer than others, but declaratives fail every time. Such are the quantum mechanics of truth. We're dealing in shades of grey that perpetually defy absolutist declarations and yet, simultaneously, that scoff at the relativists and their games of rhetorical Chinese firedrill.
But this art scrutiny disfunction is unlike both of the above examples, really. It's potentially much more good. Of course nobody really chooses to catch this disease anyways, although many try. It is one of those things that only reveals itself upon completetion. So it's not a matter of choice. It's like making a baby. You know you want to fuck, and maybe you even know that you want a baby (or that you don't), and you sure as hell can actively encourage or discourage that outcome in powerful ways, but ultimately, it isn't up to you.
Sperms don't swim where and when they're told.
They just swim where and when they can.
My sperms, incidently, are especially fond of the breaststroke.
But let's turn back away from the metaphor for a minute and back towards the point. Wait. No. I guess we're sticking with the metaphor, actually. Not the disease metaphor, though. The baby metaphor. Art scrutiny is like the baby, see? Art scrutiny is it's own entity, once conception occurs. And you can abort it, or you can ride it out. But there's no middle ground. And if you ride it out, soon there is this screaming baby. You can either get rid of it entirely - give it up to religion or authorities or pragmatism - or you can pick it up and meet its needs. And meeting the needs of art scrutiny, at first, is a real bitch. Cause it suckles directly at the tit of your ego.
It says, "Hey. You suck. That shit you're making? You're fooling yourself. It sucks. There's a good chance you'll never really be artistically successful. You're way too caught up in competition. You resent successful art because it's better than yours. You resent it so much that you can't learn from it. You praise mediocre shit in the name of relativism because it hurts less than admitting that there is truth and that your shit, along with almost all of the shit that you say you like, is a big morass of stinky lies, self-indulgence, and fear."
But if you can sit through the abuse and neither go all drama "Waaaah I'll never be any good," nor go all ballistic "Oh yeah, fuck you Art Scrutiny, what do you know?!!" then it's all happy cruising from there. You might have to weather the shit storm for a while, but if you do, you and your truth meter will become good friends, and you'll thank it for calling bullshit on you. Most of the time anyways.
So the moral of the story is:
Affirm me for my fine column.
If you point out flaws, I'll attack you on a personal level.
I get very defensive.
mr strauss
