Thanks Peg -- I agree, the best we can do is point at an idea -- the map
is not the territory (Korzybski) -- but sometimes --as Picasso (often)
said, "art is a lie I use to tell the truth." And sometimes I find myself
hopping from quote to quote sometimes as a kind of shorthand, other times
trying to avoid the depth they point to --these quotes have become a code,
a metalanguage. Here's another that suggests more adaptive advantage for
the emitter than the receiver of a communication: ". . . I do not sit
down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my
mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to
write about it. . . . We do not write in order to be understood; we write
in order to understand" (C. Day Lewis). (hence this reply?) This clarity
sought (recalling what is coming to be called clinical philosophy) recalls
also a Graham Greene comment -- "Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I
wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to
escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in
the human condition." (okay, so that's extreme)
I'm taken by the fact that many of us (that is, students we've surveyed)
began their first writings, diaries when under stress --as a apparent form
of self-therapy. (corporealization of the psyche, making the implicit
explicit? naming your fears . . . ?) Writing, venting if only to one's
self, seems often to be anxiolytic. It is as though one part of our brain
is communicating with another part through the circuitous route of writing
and reading one's own words. (Some songbirds never perfect their songs if
they cannot hear themselves) There is a large literature validating art
therapy and a growing one that includes narrative or poetry. Are there
any testimonials out there?
Cheers, Neil
"M. S.
AtKisson" To: artwithbraininmind-l@pks.bu.edu
Sent by: cc:
Subject: Re: <no subject>
05/17/2000
08:16 AM
Please
respond to
artwithbraini
nmind-l
Neil Greenberg gave us a lovely Joseph Campbell quote, which reminded me of
a Lawrence Durrell quote, which reminded me of...
Writers have often discussed their frustration with words as a medium. As
every songwriter eventually must deal with 'boy meets girl', most writers
seem to have to express (in words) the inferiority of words. It may be a
case of greener grasses -- the idealizing of some other medium in which one
has little skill. Thus the writer might say, "If only I could paint!" and
the painter might say, "If only I could write!"
Mark Defrates, who is primarily a jeweller, has this to say about words:
"The best we can hope for with languange is to circle the meaning,
continously pointing at the heart of that which we wish to communicate, in
the hope that the meaning will somehow emerge."
I can only imagine that artists who try to convey specific meaning in other
mediums might express parallel sentiments. It's all about trying to get
what's in our brains out in some physical form, and I know very few
creative people who are completely satisfied with the results of their
work. Perhaps the artist never can completely convey an idea, but merely
point at it.
Peg.
-- M. S. AtKisson Department of Neuroscience Tufts University School of Medicine Boston, MA 02111 USA =================================================================== WEB SITE: http://pks.bu.edu/awbim POST MESSAGE: Send a message to artwithbraininmind-l@pks.bu.edu (UN)SUBSCRIBE: Send message to majordomo@pks.bu.edu with 'subscribe artwithbraininmind-l' in body to subscribe, or 'unsubscribe artwithbraininmind-l' in body to unsubscribe=================================================================== WEB SITE: http://pks.bu.edu/awbim POST MESSAGE: Send a message to artwithbraininmind-l@pks.bu.edu (UN)SUBSCRIBE: Send message to majordomo@pks.bu.edu with 'subscribe artwithbraininmind-l' in body to subscribe, or 'unsubscribe artwithbraininmind-l' in body to unsubscribe
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