#2. F*** All That, We Gotta Get On With The Show.
Surfing self-doubt, narcissism, imposter syndrome and ego all the while bowing to the Universal Creative Spirit.
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
- Bertrand Russel, The Triumph of Stupidity
When making art (or living life), The Socratic Paradox (I know I know nothing and that makes me wise) and Dunning-Kruger Effect (I think I know it all but I am too stupid to know that I do not) are good ideas to keep in mind. One day, in tears from the frustration of trying to flog a story to life, I wrote this poem:
Jhumpa
When finally you’re okay
That you’re no Jhumpa Lahiri,
No Arundhati Roy,
No Chitra Banerjee Devakaruni,
No Kamila Shamsie even,
Suddenly you’re free,
Warts and all,
To be, or not to be.
The immediate effect of producing this piece of writing was that I no longer felt frustrated. Not only had I admitted I was stupid and therefore I was wise, also I had scratched an itch. This is the transformative power of art, and the reason everyone on earth should do it.
“The arts are not a way to make a living, they are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.” - Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country.
I guess ‘good’ art is made in part from consuming ‘good’ art. Garbage in garbage out? But also I think it’s about striving against the odds, the odds most often being our own damn selves. When writing or painting or making music (or starting a business or raising a child or staging a protest?), it’s always good to get the view from The Shoulder of Giants because none of us come out fully-formed Athena-like from the forehead of Zeus. Consider this: Kurt Vonnegut loved George Orwell loved Ygevny Zamyatin. And so it goes. If we follow Mohammad, Mohammad comes to our mountain. The more we follow him, the more he comes, the more the stars align, and the more he brings The Muses along for the ride.
When I was a child, I was not much of a reader, but I was obsessed with a tiny book I found in my parent’s library called Writers On Writing. It was the kind of book a publishing house puts together to sell more books. Here I came across pithy quotes from great writers most of whom I had never heard of before. “The road to hell is paved with adverbs”; “I love being a writer, it’s the paperwork I can’t stand”; “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect"; “One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple"; “The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself". From this little book, I learned about the Universal Creative Spirit and how it expresses itself. I read things that resonated with me, and those that did not. Both kinds of things were instructive, and all of it was entertaining. Here is a poem I wrote many, many years later in gratitude to the writers who made me:
They Cry Diamonds
While the rest of the world
Grunts out their labour
In earth and mud,
Blood and sweat,
I sometimes toil
Over the laboured words
Of The Intellectuals:
Parse, slice, dice,
Comma-colon-apostrophe,
Till with cut, carat, clarity,
They cry diamonds,
And beneath ashes,
Below dust,
Something sparkles,
Mine all mine,
To have and hold -
Til death do us part.
What then is the difference between inspiration, homage, and tribute… and appropriation, piracy, and plagiarism? Probably intention. The desire to create is about more than celebrity. You have to watch yourself. Here is a poem I wrote about my worst fear:
Playing to the Gallery
Cat memes.
Your toddler’s first day at playschool.
A girl’s night out. The pie you baked.
A grainy image of you at sixteen,
Big hair and pink plastic earrings,
Axl Rose in spandex shorts
Behind you on a poster
Bought at Archies in 1986.
Better still, a fangless thought,
Scribbled behind a Starbucks bill,
A requiem to the fading slant of sunshine
That illuminates your windowsill,
Ever so gently.
182 likes.
Boom!
Addendum: The title of this post is a line from the song ‘Not Now John’ by Pink Floyd. The critics couldn’t decide if the song was ‘ ferocious’ or ‘crass’. Fans say it was a critique of the post-World War II work ethic, its politicians, and the machine that existed to keep people distracted and drunk while the world burned. For me, these are the words that always pop to mind when I am trying to stave off what stands in the way of my writing - or anything I want from life: “@%$# All That, We Gotta Get On With The Show”.
I hope you enjoy it.
© Tara Sahgal
You say what every writer feels, and you say it with such eloquent honesty. I needed to read this today like ink needs paper. Don't stop writing. Hugs.
PS: I read JHUMPA several times. I wish I'd written it.
Tara I cannot understand which hidden vault supplies you with the alphabetic fluidity that charcterises your texts! Speaking for myself, all too often I find myself writing a letter, or a social media communication... when, without warning, a long-hidden thought materialises on the screen. I then find myself abandoning the original post, and copy-pasting the text into a long-pending, half-written article that lay abandoned and forlorn for weeks, sometime months. Suddenly, 2,000 words are born, sometimes gurgling, other times screaming... largely hanging onto the coat-tails of parent thoughts from decades ago about a magical biosphere that Homo sapiens neither understands, nor values.