The Poetic Ideal

[azdaema]

As long as I can remember, I've operated under the basic premise that the ideal of art is creativity—that is, creating. Creating something as strange and interesting as you can manage.

But that's only one framework for art. There's another model, one where art is about capturing the reality of our world as it is, and framing it poignantly.

Thought Experiments

I'm largely apolitical, really, and I have a tendency to take interest only when the matter in question isn't really on the table, and thus it's only hypothetical. When hear people start talking politics, usually it just makes me so tired. But then I will happily debate people on topics that don't remotely matter, nor have any bearing to me. A few years back I was all into the idea of California becoming our own country, if it actually took a civil war to make that happen, I would've noped right on out.

In modern politics—particularly as practiced online, and particular as pertains to social justice—everything is very intellectualized and hypothetical. But what if… And I think that might be part of the reason that social justice theory flourished on tumblr, alongside fandom. Each "what if?" is a story. A story is a demonstration of an idea. It's like a conceptual model—but without math, so you can fudge the details.

In theory, communism and polyamory are great ideas. If they don't work out in real life, that's just user error, human weakness. It does not reflect upon the theory in any way, shape, or form. People are just imperfect, y'know? And we've all seen human weakness turn monogamy and capitalism into cruel disasters. Human weakness is a problem everywhere! Giving them flack for it here is a double standard, isn't it?

In this kind of discourse, the question is, What theory works better? rather than, What is statically more likely to yield good results? Everything is framed like a thought experiment, and the emphasis is on the theory rather than the practical application thereof. And the thing is, I like thought experiments! I like puzzles! I find them interesting! So this model is an interesting game to play—at least for a time.

Worldbuilding

While I do like stories that are straight-up bonkers, like the works of Dr. Seuss or L. Frank Baum, I've long held that the artistic ideal as something where the logic checks out, but which is very removed from or different from my real world.

For example, I recently read Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind, and I loved the story's magic system. This magic system conforms to the law of conservation of energy: Energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another. In this book, they do math which describes their magic. They sometimes carry little "pocket warmers"—a little metal thing with fuel that you light, which burns super hot for a few minutes, so that a magician can draw upon that heat-energy for their own use. I loved that shit.

But just as important as the logic is the unreality, the disconnect with the real world—or at least my real world. I've long thought there was something kinda sexy about the French revolution. But now I have witnessed, in my country in my lifetime, angry mobs in red hats constructing gallows to hang the people in power, suddenly the French revolution isn't sexy anymore. Mob rule is terrifying, actually.

Or for another example: swords are sexy, guns are not. The idea of violence can be exciting and intriguing, but only when it's sufficiently unreal. The reality of violence—or even just the real threat of violence—is simply horrifying.

Plot Holes

In concepts—ie. storytelling or ideology—random and unexplained things drive me crazy. They're plot holes. They make me angry because these ideas are supposed to be sound. Someone was supposed to think this through.

But in the real world, I actually find random and inexplicable shit very charming. It nearly always make me smile, laugh, and pause for a moment of delighting in the sheer serendipity of nature.

The bag of hand sanitizer (like a Canadian milk bag) that I found hanging in a tree in the parking lot at work. That restaurants continue to pay for "leafy garnishes" even though I suspect don't really appreciate them. That building down town with the strange architecture, which has sat empty for years despite surely being a pretty good real estate location. Shoes thrown over power lines. The existence of pandas. Also koalas, with their poisonous diet and smooth brains and bad teeth and STDS and stinkin' cute faces.

I love this shit.

Coming back around to art

So I basically blame my predilection for the hypothetical and unreal on being an artist. I've been writing since I was like 8, reading since I was even younger, and I tend to think of this as a pretty intractable part of myself, something that I can't really do much to change.

But creative art—art that's all about creating things—is only one model of art. There's also the model that's more about capturing the world as it is.

On my dating profile I say, "writer seeking other writer." But despite this, lately I've been texting this girl who's into photography and biographies. She tells me things like, "Don't think of Christmas as the symbolic zenith of 2020. What if it's just a day—a good day, hopefully, but just a day, no more significant than any other." I've got a good feeling about this girl; I think she's good for me. Even if it doesn't work out, she's really opened my mind, and I'll take that with me regardless.

I've pulled out my camera again. If you look back at what other photos I have on the chip, I see that the last time I was doing photography was when I was taking pictures of the big orange tomcat who lived in the school parking lot. I loved that cat so much. I took these pictures of him sitting under a car and looking out over the parking lot, all calm and collected, like he was Mufasa looking out over his kingdom. I remember taking those photos, wanting to capture what I saw in this cat and show it to other people; show them how beautiful these stray parking lot cats were. It was nothing like the kind of art I normally do, but it is art after a fashion.

This might work for me. I might be able to live less in my head that way; focus more on the world around me.

Because the thing is, I'm not a cynic. I'm actually a "bad millennial/gen z" in a lot of ways. Unlike many of my peers, I don't think no one should have kids because this world is so awful and headed for disaster that it would be cruel to make anyone live in it. I think life is beautiful. I think the Earth is beautiful, despite the damage humans have done to it.

It's kind of weird that I live in my head so much, really, because compared to other people, I don't "need to," per se. Maybe it's leftover from when I was a child, when I was unhappy a lot more.