Well, I think the first two replies aren't exactly what I'm looking for. It is as if they assume the life I lead is less than theirs; what if I am handicapped, autistic; what if, perchance, my life is filled to the maximum with such "academic theorizing," and theirs, without it, is lacking. What if I was married to the most beautiful and sexually alluring person alive, had happy children, lots of money, a satisfying job, but I have these curiousities? Are you so satisfied, so cock sure of yourselves and what you are about that you can give, without the apparent bat of an eye, and with applause for the murderere who escapes domination by the authorities -- whose life is everything about authority -- such downright bad, insensitive, quite possibly hurtful, or otherwise naively malicious advice? What I am attempting to do, here is what my third responder has coyly (though not exactly hit upon) -- My own writings do need the advice of people who are experienced in the works I mentioned, but my life as a regular guy, as a defender of murderers and child molesters, as an expatriot, as a wild lover and my studies have not fully prepared me for -- and yet, though search for a method is and always will be critical -- please feel free to exclude yourselves.
"You seem to be after something other than empty theorizing. That is, you haven't settled your own worldview--and this limits how you might approach your own writing. The "get a life" advice is parallel with "get a view," in this case."
I think you are soft peddling their maliciousness. I get this all the time with people who live boring lives and ask me to do what it is I am already doing, and they themselves can only wish or imagine to do. I will weigh the life of mine against either of these two foolish scoundrels for any amount of money they wish to wager, say, with some Andy Warhol, Charles Lindbergh, Picasso, Gauguin, Ernest Hemingway, Mother Theresa, Dorian Grey type grouping of experts to objectively and subjectively weigh them in the balance. I am not afraid of changing worldviews whatsoever (seeing it as a sign of openmindedness), but am always in the process of developing a world view, a weltanschaung -- and therefore, I don't think it hurts my approach to my own writing, but helps it... the best writers to my ear are timid in the overall tone, which, sometimes I lose, say, in personal correspondence -- I like the passive voice, find it far more interesting and informative than the active voice -- So one of my key views about getting a view is that one must always be in the process of that -- but really, I wish there were experts out there, I am lamenting, that there are or seem to be no experts in refining the passivbe voice, which is a project I wish to undertake, rather than achieving, perfecting the active voice (which seems, largely, a waste of time).
Interestingly--and, given the rambling & abstract nature of your posts above, perhaps accidentally--the areas that seem to be the most bothersome for you could be said to be the results of just the sort of communal-think patterns such a questioning/questing thread as this might promote. So "get a life" or "get a view" would really be advice to stop asking others for a worldview which you could adopt: Do your own thing, in other words.
Thank you, I am, what I am looking for is that rare bird who knows what I'm talking about, who has a clue, a real friend.
But in case I am quite wrong about your motivation, I'll posit this for consideration: How do changing worldviews, in the individual and/or in the society, shape approaches toward art? I'm thinking that the loosely named "worldviews" might be the result of more than merely aesthetic concerns. (For instance the supposed link between the theory of relativity & quantum physics theories, and post-modern or, now, "post-post-modern" approaches.)
This is what I am getting at. People don't like changing world views, like like to hang on to something solid, and which, seeing this as a not only a major source of alienation in life, but also a major flaw, I think a work must be representative of some sort of inconsistency. If a work takes long enough, say three or eight years to write, or paint, or draft -- then why should it's views, its styles not change... for the sake of some silly judge's to critique it and say, "it's not symmetrical. She doesn't express a consistent view"? This is something I'm very much after. For an artist to be an artist they must at the same time feel positively they have something to share, but at the same time not feel that they are bound to the rules of that mobocracy of which, our two friends have so adeptly proved themselves to belong.
For instance, I've started a work which is about,say, deconstruction (with of course my own spin on it), then I read Bataille (who is a natural occurrence if one is in that area, reading, researching) or, say, I commit a larceny (to eat and stay alive while starving to death writing), or I have a fling with a beautiful and wealthy, married woman I meet at an arts and croisants party (allured to me by my Rilkeesque qualities) each of which dramatically changes my views (the impetus, the inertia of which, even if only for a while, a year, a few months) -- what credit would the artist have then, in his or her own eyes, or to the world, which would later view his or her works? Art does not occur in a glass bubble and it should not pretend to.
One might suppose (I'd suppose) that in-depth analyses of various factors would require much time--and so distract from the actual creation of poems and fictional prose. Still, we are influenced by what we know/don't know.
This I cannot agree with. If one has serious writing in mind, then everything that falls from them is worthy of examination and contemplation -- and even moreso, those times in which they are idle contemplating, are too. that is why I type so fast -- This whole dialogue, having taken exactly six minutes forty five seconds to write.
Perhaps you haven't gotten anywere. In any event, carry on,
Nils
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