Letters to the Editor
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"existential artist"
Forget Radiohead, you should start listening to Can (one of their influences). I think the Damo Suzuki-era stuff (1970-73) would particularly appeal to you.
And please stop referring to yourself as an "existential artist," that label sounds ridiculously pretentious. You remind me of a girl I knew who called herself a "citizen of the world" because she compulsively traveled as a result of having no real home, a fact she was proud of.
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Many people eat up and crave smart originality
whether in writing, visual arts, or even just performance art.
If you have talent and an ability to express it, you should be able find at least a few who understand or appreciate your talents.
If you do not want to bother to express your originality, do not fault others for not understanding you.
You either have some talent or you do not-- show it or else shove it and live alone. Or else if you need people, forgive them for not constantly striving to be different for different's sake. I know it can be grating to live among dull ignoramuses, time and actively seeking out smart people solves that. Move to Austin-- cured my existential loneliness.
I think you are afraid you may just be a talentless butthole who hates people.
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a real stinker
The letter writer is a brat.
I have had some friends like her...notice I said HAD. I tried really hard to like them. One in particular...but they are all whiners, who chose to sneer or look down their noses at the commoners who acttually know how to: Be friends without sneering, dress properly and respectfully to suit the situation, listen to a wide range of music, like everything from kiddie cartoons to Igmar Bergman films, have loving friendships in which the friends really do "get" each other... I could go on and on. I feel sorry for the 'non comoners' they are always trying to prove themselves...and of course regal thier one or two friends with their woes about the non understanding world.
PS. Doesn't Radiohead have a very extensive fanbase? so wouldn't being a fan of radiohead make you a bit of a commoner anyway?
personally I am too cool for radiohead so I dont know for sure.
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A quote from author Katharine Dunn ...
... sums things up perfectly.
"There are those whose own vulgar normality is so apparent and stultifying that they strive to escape it. They affect flamboyant behavior and claim originality according to the fashionable eccentricities of their time. They claim brains or talent or indifference to mores in desperate attempts to deny their own mediocrity. These are frequently artists and performers, adventurers and wide-life devotees.
Then there are those who feel their own strangeness and are terrified by it. They struggle toward normalcy. They suffer to exactly that degree that they are unable to appear normal to others, or to convince themselves that their aberration does not exist. These are true freaks, who appear, almost always, conventional and dull."
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LW: face it, the world just isn't that into you
sorry. you'll discover that sooner or later. might as well be now.
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Radiohead? RADIOHEAD?
And you call yourself original?
Radiohead rips off Low. Not sure who Low rips off. But whoever it is, THEY rip off someone, too.
There IS no originality, deal with it. There is being true to oneself and not to an image of who one ought to be. It's called growing up. A sure sign of immaturity is a feeling of disdain for others, and I don't care if you are 14, 26 or 72--if you are looking down your nose at other people, you have failed the most important step in becoming an adult. You have failed to develop compassion and the ability to accept others for who they are. You have failed in the development of compassion.
Here is a three step process to developing it.
1) Go work, three days a week, at a homeless shelter. Note the large number of folks there with uncombed hair, white socks with dress pants, and an unswerving belief in their own superiority. That is called "mental illness."
2) Having worked with them for a minimum of a month, start to write down what you have noted about them, and the similarities/differences between their world views and yours.
3) Start to take that same anthropologist's POV into your dealings with the people that you so dismissively call "normals". Note where you have similar and dissimilar POVs. Note the shared humanity, whether or not you agree with their life choices, whether or not you agree with their clothing choices, whether or not you agree with their music choices.
I mean, come on, I'm taking you at your word that you are both 26 and a hip, original person. Despite your 13 year old's shout out for Radiohead.
Sheesh.
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In an oblique way, LW here reminds me of I'm Too Beautiful and I'm Aging...
I had a belated response to the beautiful woman who mourned her aging and loss of instant loving gazes because of that. I realized what my answer is for her, belatedly, and I feel the same about this LW:
Though it sounds like LW Beautiful and LW Existialist couldn't be more different, I think there is commong ground. To wit: for LW Beautiful and Losing It, I realized after comments were closed that what she can do is to give back that instant love she once recieved by percieving the beauty in those she meets. I think that is what I've done as I've aged. The halycon days are gone but the human connections can thrive, it's all attitute.
Which, attitude, current Existentialist LW, has not begun to discover. Sure, we all have long moments when we feel more original or more xxx or more xxxx than others. But to say it in French, au fond, or in essence, we can find an ability to love and accept just about anyone on their own terms not on your terms. You don't have to be an existential original to be a sweetheart or a wise woman/man or a healer. Dear LW, you sound very isolated. I suggest this experiment:
Go outside and do your errands, or make up errands, and look at people without hostility. Try smiliing. Try imagining that the square woman selling flowers or the square men heading to the stock market, have, underneath their personas, really special qualities. I know you do not think anyone does but imagine that goodness or sweetness or kindness manages to find ordinary people through which to shine. Then as you imagine this, shine a smile, fake it if you have to, and maybe even a "Hi" to one after another. If you give yourself a week to do so, I bet your high horse will begin to feel like a prison, which by the by, it well might be.
People have thought of me as an existential original, or some such, but they know this only after I give others a chance to see that I can imagine special qualities in them. I have done this naturally for decades. And I get more pleasure out of spreading a little love in this harsh world than in thinking myself in any way superior. The trick, dear LW, is to think of all the others as being superior and giving them their due. Then, if you can pull this off, they will shine on you. It's called interdependency and mutual affirmations and if you give em you're sure to get them. But this is gonna be hard for you given your certainty that you are superior. Not true. Never true. And notice:
I'm not suggesting, yet, that you work in hospice for children with terminal diseases. No, start with a smile and a radical imagination that others are wonderful in some way. Show that and you'll see such a difference in your life. If you can't do this simple exercise, then know that collectively we here do not agree with you and many of us are old enough to be your parents. Try to give it rather than 'get' it. Good luck. I hope you read these letters.