Oct
21
You Lyses
Filed Under Inside Out
Years ago a friend once told me to never be apologetic for what I do, or who I am. He said, if anyone pressed me about my success, work, or livelihood at one of the many social gatherings I avoid at all costs, that I should just tell them I’m a writer, or a painter, or a baker, or whatever it is that I do. Just like that. No thinking, no holding back, no nothing.
He told me, for anyone interested, he would simply tell them he was an artist. No apologies. No way. If after that, the person didn’t know what to do with his response, then they were absolutely free to excuse themselves from the conversation, and find their investment banker, broker, IT manager friends, they came to the party with and re-enter the safe haven of the narrowed perspective (Happy hour Fridays, cottage weekends, training for marathons, house renovations) of their own making.
My friend’s response is obvious is it not? Nothing to argue with there except for maybe the not-so-obvious declaration an artist’s statement entails. Confidence.
I have none. My friend? He has tons. He is a very accomplished artist. For him, making art is more than just a passion, creative outlet, or way to shape a life. It is also a business, a career, an influence on others as a way to reinterpret the world and present it to patrons, people willing to look, again.
I haven’t done much of that yet. Well, not consistently, and certainly not as a career. “I bake,” or “I crochet” or “I garden,” to me, sounds more like a love of a particular thing than being just that thing. Does that make you less credible at the thing you love? More confusing for people to understand what you’re all about?
Is being apologetic about being undecided about your path, your persuasion, or yourself? Aren’t we all a bit unsure of who we are, what we’re all about, where our future is headed? Who we are to become?
Or is this a matter of “faking it till you make it.” That life is all about appearances–critical to keep up at all times. To commit to what it is that you like to do, even though you’re reluctant to leave that thing in the other person’s thoughts, or mouth, in case they can’t grasp it quite in the way you do.
In “Laestrygonians” of James Joyce’s Ulysses, protagonist, Leopold Bloom finds himself in an art museum, among statues of goddesses. While there, Bloom shrewdly inspects the sculptures to determine if they have anuses. He finds, in stark contrast to his wife, Molly Bloom (who is cheating on him) they do not.
The search for the “hole” in Ulysses is a small detail, but the search for the “whole” is not. It is the arc of the story. Bloom only realizes his “whole” (his life and love for his adulteress wife who embodies perfection because of her imperfection) by reflecting on the “hole” (the perfectly cast goddesses, devoid of life, impression, error, character and more).
I bring the Bloom reference up because I it reminds me of something far simpler than my friend’s declaration, and yet equally unapologetic and effective. Something, I know I can use at the next function I’m not attending because I am completely confident about it. A statement asserting I am the hole/whole picture–many things at once, and no thing at all.
“I’m human.”
IMAGE | Tauba Auerbach | 2008 | Creation/Reaction | 20″ x 16″ | gouache and pencil on paper on panel
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brings to mind two thoughts: the t-shirt sloganish “i’m a human being” not a “human do-ing”.
as common as this “apologetic” feeling is to me, sometimes it also depends on the population of the party. at writer shindigs i’ve had lawyers apologize that they’re not “creative”.
this is a great reminder. i’m going to read this often.