Letters to the Editor
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Wonderful Reply
Dear LW,
Cary has given you a wonderful answer and I hope it helps you. Now, purely for my own enjoyment and by way of reenforcing what many other commenters have said (for art is not about original content but in packaging those few universal and antediluvian truths in ever new ways)I am going to type up a brief excerpt from Russell Banks short story "Lobster Night". Says the same thing but in a different way. It is a conversation in which a young woman has just told a man the story about how she was hit by lightening when she was seventeen.
"...I was the only person I knew who'd had this particular expereience. Still am. It's strange, but when you're the only person you know who's gone through something that's changed you into a completely different person, for a while it's like you're on your own planet, like if you're a Vietnam vet and don't know anyone else who was in Vietnam, too."
"I can dig it," Noonan said somberly, although he himself had not been in Vietnam.
"You get used to it, though. And then it turns out to be like life. I mean, there's you, and there's everybody else. Only, unlike the way it is for everybody else, this happened to me in a flash, not over years and so slow you don't even realize how true it is. Know what I mean?"
"How true what is?"
"Well, just that there's you, and there's everybody else. And that's life."
End of quote. We are all going through something strange that is making us into completely different people - from what we were, and from others. It is called life. Some people may be more aware of it, or recognize it earlier on than others. But we do have this in common, that we are all going through it. I am sure that there is something significant about this paradox, only I can't quite put my finger on it this morning. I have a head cold, maybe that's why.
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Discernment vs Judgement, and the quest for "Truth"
Part of growing up is learning the distinction between judgement and discernment. They are not the same thing. Your letter is filled with judgement. There isn't an ounce of discernment.
Judgement divides Us from Them and says that They are so impossibly different from Us. Judgement says that They are inferior to Us because they might have the possiblity of Getting It but that They are flawed/stupid/unworthy. Judgement sees the world and snorts in derision. Judgement wants to slam doors shut. Judgement is tribal.
Discernment says that people have differences, but takes out the perjoratives and the demands for others to Get It or Get Out. Discernment seems to talk more in terms of You/Me and is less concerned about Us/Them. Discernment lets us like things on their own merit and not for their symbolic value. I may not appreciate your tastes, you may not appreciate mine, but Discernment lets us be friends, and learn from eachother, because we respect eachother. Or not be friends, but still, to live in peace. Discernment is about preference, not more than/less than.
When you develop discernment, you will stop being afraid. Your letter is full of fear of the other (normals), which is a hallmark of judgement.
From the sound of your letter, you can't be active as an artist. I have friends who are artists and they are, deep down, if not happy, satisfied people. It's the art - they are doing something they enjoy, do well, and feel has meaning. It's something I've also seen in people who aren't artists, but have found something that gives them the same satisfaction. That satisfaction is what you are calling "truth", and as we become adults, we find that there are several aspects of it for us. Their professional "truth" may not be yours. You may not understand the "truth" of what kind of family they choose. Or their sexuality. Or even, dare I say it, what politics they have.
You may have truths they don't like or understand as well. That's life. Get on with it, and stop navelgazing. You will be just as unique as you were before... in fact, perhaps more so, if you can become truly tolerant.
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18 years later....
Dear LW
I hope you are OK. Please don't feel pushed into anything, neither by your parents nor your friends. You don't need to act normal, dress normal or date if you don't feel comfortable doing those things. Why should you? And who is pushing you?
Your letter reminded me so much of when I was 26. I was exactly the opposite of you. I was engaged, I had a good education and a real job. I always, always wore heels and my hair was always perfectly coiffed. Nobody wanted me to be like this (well my husband to be did, but that was his primary qualification), it was me, I wanted desperately to be normal. Completely normal.
Then, I was invited to participate in an art-project, with a lot of other young artists. And one guy was exactly like you. I was deeply fascinated. He seemed so interesting, rockstarishly handsome and creative. Everything I didn't want to be. I tried to get into the same corner of the project as him, but he obviously thought I was totally ignorant. He didn't even say hello to me in the hallway.
Oh well, the good thing was that it was a sign I was perfectly normal.
A decade later, he called me. We had both become modestly well-known, each in our field, and he needed advice for a piece that only I could provide. We became friends. We both went through divorces and spent long nights drinking wine and talking. It turned out that none of us were who we thought we were.
The reason I wanted to be normal was that I grew up in a truly bohemian extended family. I don't know shit about being normal, and neither did anyone from my family or friends from the hippie school I went to. But normal seemed so much more comfortable. Regular meals. Clean clothes. So I was 'acting' normal.
My friend was just the opposite: he wanted to be a wild rock star and performance artist, but he came from the sweetest suburban normal family, and could only construe himself from what he read in books and saw on television. He was pretending to be an artist.
It has worked well, for both of us. To a limit. Both solutions had huge existential problems built in - which is why we ended up being single parents. Maybe we got caught up in our acts.
Now, it's much nicer to just hang out and drink wine and talk about something more interesting than ourselves, without worrying wether we are original or normal.