RESISTANCE AND TROUBLE
We get ourselves into trouble because it’s a cheap way to get attention. Trouble is a faux form of fame. It’s easier to get busted in the bedroom with the faculty chairman’s wife than it is to finish that dissertation on the metaphysics of motley in the novellas of Joseph Conrad.
Ill health is a form of trouble, as are alcoholism and drug addiction, proneness to accidents, all neuroses including compulsive screwing-up, and such seemingly benign foibles as jealousy, chronic lateness, and the blasting of rap music at 110 dB from your smoked-glass ‘95 Supra. Anything that draws attention to ourselves through pain-free or artificial means is a manifestation of Resistance.
Cruelty to others is a form of Resistance, as is the willing endurance of cruelty from others.
The working artist will not tolerate trouble in her life because she knows trouble prevents her from doing her work. The working artist banishes from her world all sources of trouble. She harnesses the urge for trouble and transforms it in her work.
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10 June 2008 at 8:09 AM
WR Jones
Some good thought here.