One of my favorite shows is the British quiz show "QI" ("Quite Interesting"). I remember the host, Stephen Fry (an idol of mine), telling a story about some new-ish English university, I forget in what city, hiring a marketing agency or the like to help them come up with a name, and twenty thousand pounds later, the agency landed on [name of city] University, University of [name of city], and something else just as banal. I relate this anecdote because, one, I think it's quite interesting, and two, it relates a bit to the topic at hand. Although the university might very well have been clever to think of those names on their own, it took an extravagant journey to discover them; rather, rediscover them, perhaps. Now, another story: a few years ago, I attended my first Passover feast at a friend's posh apartment ("posh"; I've been watching too much BBC) and even though it was my junior year of college, I still hadn't quite become chummy with my peers, so part of the conversation that evening fixed on me. I was asked what I believed in, what my religion was; my answer, at the time: Art, with a good helping of Christian Gnosticism. It's been a journey of almost four years to realize, more than ever, how true for me the Art part really is. I suppose that's a victory for Experience, but the more I live the more I learn that Experience is really an affirmation of what you suspected all along, whether you thought you were right, or even thought, deep down, that you were wrong. Or maybe that's just me; Experience has yet to help me decide which side within me is right on this matter. To the point: I have known all along that my church is the music hall, the museum, the theatre, what artsy place will you, but I was a doubting Thomas, and it took me a detour through Politics and the Normal Life to correct my path.
How awful the Normal Life is! As I mentioned in my last post, I've lived the Normal Life the past year and a half, and it has been about the worst. Perhaps I went into the typical working world with a Good Morning's Hatred of it, but nothing subsequent has cured me of that bad faith. "How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnished, not to shine in use!/ As though to breath were life." Basically, I want much more.
Yet how much worse is Politics. A couple weeks ago I hung out with a friend, and we had a lengthy debate over politics and the like; I wasn't doing that great a job, and I was a bit surprised to discover how little I cared about it. At the end, as we were parting, I reiterated how much I hated the whole thing ("to hell with the whole damned thing!") and that I needed to set my priorities in order, and nowhere at the top was Politics. And tonight, after seeing so many Facebook posts about the Vice Presidential debates, instead of being interested and eager about it, I am rather tired of it, disgusted even. I am deeply cynical about it all, including my own political stance, and that's no way to live. So now my only stance is Marxist, Groucho Marxist: "Whatever it is, I'm against it!" because, though I still find it interesting, it can no longer be a main interest, not for the good of my health at least.
Art, then, has remained, waiting patiently. It remains one of a few things about which I have never become cynical over. I despair over it, I become angry over it, I get frustrated with it, but I never look at it and feel an emptiness within, as though I were at the end of a lengthy relationship and realized it was all for naught and made of naught. But it is more than an interest; it is, as I said, my religion. I have a deep spirituality and abiding mysticality (new word), and they are never more profoundly plucked than when in the presence of Art. There is more proof of God for me in a good melody, in a fine poem, in a stunning painting--in a single psalm--than in all the writings of Paul.
That's all I have to say really. I suppose I could expound further, but not now; all things should unravel leisurely. I am an Artist, a Musician to be exact, and the saints who intercede on my behalf before God are the works of Art.
