2.5 Why art?

I was recently trying to understand my desire to do some kind of art. Thinking back, i don’t think i was ever the archetype of the creative child—not until i started cultivating it in myself in my teenage years. But i always wanted to do some kind of art-ish thing.

And if all i wanted was to create things, it could just as easily have been—you know: buildings, or computer programs, or what-have-you. But thinking about programming, for instance, even though there is a very creative element, i can’t imagine wanting to really focus on it. It seems somehow too dry, too formal, too—well, dull, quite frankly.

And i was thinking that maybe growing up i had the strong experience of feeling unable to have an emotional effect on the people around me—particularly parents, of course; particularly my rather self-absorbed father, i suppose. I wonder how important it is to be able to feel emotionally visible, or powerful, or whatever the word would be: that your actions or words or feelings have some kind of effect on others. My girlfriend accuses me of being melodramatic at times. Perhaps so, and maybe i learned it in a context where it was the only way to get any result from people. I do tend to assume my actions and words don’t have any emotional effect on people. So i was thinking: maybe my wanting to do art is in fact a desire to have some kind of emotional impact on other people.

I don’t know if that’s neurotic, or if it actually does apply to me. But it’s kind of interesting. I can think of little that has more potential emotional impact that art can. So i dunno. Just thinking out loud, really. But it never occur ed to me consciously how much of a kind of a power trip it can be, thinking that random strangers could have these feelings and emotions as a result of reading my book. Wow. Freaky.

So, the obvious conclusion: Art is not about self-expression, it’s about emotional manipulation and dominance. There ya go.

Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Based on an email to Steve Clarian
2006.7