The Creation of Art

It is said broken people make the best art. Perhaps because they understand it the best. After all, art is an expression of humanity that cannot be communicated any other way, and brokenness is only a concept to describe what we barely understand. It is also said we must be broken before we can be renewed.

In retrospect, "good" experiences that make you "happy," give you a natural high, exhilarate your feelings don't necessarily increase your productivity or creativity. When things are good, when you think you've found the best thing in life thus far, what more is there to consider? When the world's at your feet and you think you can see the future, things become so much more expressable - easy to relate. We've all been there, in love, or just on top of the world, like that 60's pop song, or 90's pop song, or that new one... the one with all the same chords.

But when things are hard, when you've hit the rocks and the last splinter has been ground away by the sand, when you're just a piece of glass on the beach being worn away by sun and sea, that is advancement. A piece of seaglass doesn't become smooth from being on a shelf somewhere in someone's bedroom, it's from months, years of turmoil and chaos, storms and tides. It's the hard times that make the beauty shine through. And though there may be the same beauty at the heart of it, it is hardly the same piece that came from the glass blower's. From the outside you wouldn't know.

In some respects, it's possible that is what art must go through before it really becomes worthwhile. Or even gets created. I'm no expert, but there seems an initiation process of sorts before things become great, or great ideas are born. Lately I've been thinking about Dickens and Beethoven. Alot about composing, just the process of creating something. Like the prelude, or the novel.

I'm only stewing ideas. Merely because I'd never written songs before, and now I have. Maybe that's really typical. I don't know. I'd like to think of playing it someday, maybe it being popular in underground circles, in a small way.. and somehow one person will know it was written for them.