| |
|
I don't have a problem with people identifying themselves as things like 'writer', 'artist' etc.. if these motivations are genuinely at the core of their being. By which I mean driving every waking moment of their lives so that they instinctively interpret every experience they have in terms of their chosen method/s of creative expression. If you place pretty much everything else in life as secondary to the internal drive to write or draw or whatever - then I think it's fine to think of yourself in these terms.
Over the last few years I've practised various martial arts, and although I train in Tai Chi pretty much every day, I'd never define myself as a 'martial artist' because as much as I enjoy it - it's essentially a hobby. I don't consider it the spark that fires my existence, in the way that other things are. I know people who quite clearly live to train in Penchak Silat, and pretty much every free moment they have is spent in the gym. They are obviously accomplished martial artists regardless of whether they ever turn it into a lucrative commercial enterprise or not.
I suppose it's the same with people like Van Gogh, presumably he wasn't a real artist because he couldn't support himself with his work.
I hesitate at bringing Aleister Crowley into this, as I'm not especially into that whole thing, but I think that Crowley's 'religion' Thelema gives quite an interesting spin on this. One of the main tenets of Thelema is the often quoted "Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" - which essentially means that everyone has got a 'True Will', or in other words, an activity that they were born to do. I quite like this notion, whether you regard it as one of the organising principles of the universe, or just a useful way of thinking about your place in the world.
According to Thelema, the duty of every living being is to discover their true will and then do it, otherwise you're committing a sin against yourself and the universe. I think you can safely say that it was Van Gogh's 'true will' to paint, rather than to sponge money off his brother. It's probably always been The Rock's 'true will' to layeth the smackdown all over the candy asses of lesser professional wrestlers in the WWE, regardless of what he may have done prior to that. It may be our speculative writer or artists 'true will' to make their art - and if this is the case, then as far as I'm concerned they
have every right to define themselves in these terms. |
|
|
