Pretty
Even though it isn't accepted social behavior, one of the keys to creativity is making sure we stay childlike in thought and action.
Weekly Three
HEAR: “Humming Bird” by Maya Jane Coles
READ: One to three million Uyghurs have been placed in Chinese "reeducation centers." A comic about escaping one just won the Pulitzer Prize.
VIEW: I started a YouTube channel to capture my Midwestern art endeavors as well as the work of other local creators. Here’s a video I recorded recently of Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate a.k.a. “The Bean.”
No. 73: Pretty
While driving home after dropping my parents off at the airport yesterday, my eyes landed on a big, bearded man riding a chopper in the opposite direction. I don’t know why he caught my eye, but he did. Sleeveless shirt. Backwards hat. Black sunglasses. His motorcycle had high handlebars. They were narrow, bringing his clenched fists close together, and there was something goofy about the scene — comical not in a derogatory way, but rather cute and endearing. Here’s what might be considered a “manly man” riding along on a sparkly-painted motorcycle with specially fitted handlebars. For some reason, as he passed, I thought of him as he was as a child. And I found that image hard to imagine.
He had so thoroughly transformed into his masculine adult persona, at least outwardly, that I struggled to conjure up a picture of him as smooth-faced, skinnier, smaller — a boy. But while the tough guy biker look was far from boyhood — no boy is truly tough — the fact that he was riding this fancy bike seemed perfectly inline with the whims of a child. What boy doesn’t want to fly around on a loud, motorized bicycle? Maybe in all other aspects of his life, the person he was as a child is dead and gone, but while riding his motorcycle, that boy was resurrected.
Which made me think: Why do so many people forget who they were as a child, and so fast? Or, at least, what it meant to be a child? It’s common knowledge that somewhere around 10 years old is usually one of the best times of anyone’s life, if not the best. And yet the story goes that when “adulthood” comes around, it’s time to forget. Why?
I have a theory.
For one, the teenage years come with a hatred of the years that came before. Being a teenager means trying to erase the fact that you’re still a child in favor of immediately becoming an adult. That’s an easy one.
My main theory — which is probably less of a theory than a fact — is this: that there is a social force that urges people to “grow up” and “act their age,” to stop fooling around with activities that are not profitable or productive, to apply hard logic and explain every situation or circumstance, to accept the status quo and to buy-in to the idea that fun and games of childhood were temporary, and once childhood ends the fun and the games are done for good.
If this is the case, it shouldn’t be. We can grow up, sure, whatever that means — I assume, working a job, being a responsible partner, etc. — while preserving what it means to be a child: to wonder, to play, to be present, to be vulnerable, to be stupid, to be weird, to be weak, to be out-of-the-loop, to be curious, to be amazed, to waste time, to feel intensely, to show our emotions, to ask questions, to create things with whatever we have at our disposal. Remembering what it means to be a child also allows us to preserve some of that near gender-neutrality of our early years, when it’s okay for boys to be “girly” and for girls to be “tom boys,” instead of checking our watches during the pubescent years and suddenly dressing, talking, and acting according to what the world prescribes for men and women.
Put simply, to remember who we were as children makes our adulthood multi-dimensional, more colorful, not as cut and dry. The happiest adults, I think, are really half-adult, half-kid. And certainly talented artists are half-adult, half-kid — an estimate that is probably generous, since art seems to require the art-maker to think like a child more often than not.
I’ve made it a point to preserve what I think it meant to be a child. I try to think in illogical or roundabout patterns. I say what comes to mind. I add flourishes to my writing or my language or my music not because I think others will like it or think it beautiful, but because I think it’s fun. I do things in a way that makes sense to me, even if it makes me look foolish by adult standards.
And as anyone who preserves their childhood in their daily life is likely to attest, you will look like a fool. What’s promoted in this newsletter is not a recipe for social success or popularity. People will look at you strange. They will think you odd. They will scoff. They will laugh. They will see an adult and expect you to act like one.
To those people, here’s a very disingenuous and dispassionate, “Sorry.”
It’s easy to know and follow the social cues expected of grown-ups. It’s harder — and millions of times more fun — to tell a rough and tough biker that their motorcycle’s sparkly paint is “pretty.” They may disagree, or maybe they would have used a different world — “cool,” “badass,” “clean” — but deep down they know it’s pretty, too. ♦
Mailbox
Regarding last week's newsletter, "New art":
Great Matt! I look forward to when you feel ready to share some or any of these other forms of expression. Once again, I feel a kinship as I too continue to explore these and other forms of expression.Music holds probably the highest position for me, but I lean toward the acoustic and environmental. My musical aspirations remain unfulfilled, but I continue to play. I play an alto sax and an acoustic guitar. Not at the same time.
I find that my practice is both necessary and instructive. Sometimes it is intrinsically rewarding, other times it is a reminder, like a marker in time that lets me know how far I've come and how far I have to go. My soul's desire, particularly with the sax, is improvisation. As I don't find more than a couple times a week to play, I spend most of that time playing scales and exercises to maintain and improve my wind and embouchure. The muscles of the mouth and cheeks are crucial.
Even though I've played the sax (on and off) since elementary school, I have never done it consistently enough to play really well. I play the flute at a similar level of proficiency. If I manage to make something a little better than not half bad I'll share it with you.
carry on.
- Fred
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