This is not me dissing writing. I love writing. I want to be a writer more than anything else. Writing is the form of which I engage with the world. From a young age, my mind would look at standard spaces in houses and parks, and process them in a photographic, picturesque way. To deal with constant slew of striking images, I often narrated what happened in my head, like writing a mental autobiography. This is true of people I've met, and places I’ve seen. So, in a sense, writing is fundamental to my being. At the same time, I've always had something of an inferiority complex towards other artists, particularly of the purest artistic forms: Music composition and painters/drawers. Writing takes maturity, meditation, and wisdom. 'Writing prodigies' are unheard of. Don't tell me about Christopher Paolini. He's bereft of any ideas other than regurgitated, spunk-stained Tolkien. However People with rare ability in music composition and visual art just 'get it' like a math genius. Provided the composer has skill in a particular instrument, he can quickly pick one up and play out a composition, and prove he is good. I could read a poem I have written, but words are literal, and thus even if I am a good poet, my skill is much more subjective. Music, and to a lesser degree images, are abstract. Some compositions are so stirring words fall at their feet helplessly, only able to describe the bare surface. The same is with a great painting. You might have people like Jackson Pollock who are a little more contentious, but if you look at a Renaissance era master, his talent in aesthetic beauty is self-evident. In other words, Da Vinci may not be one of your favourite painters, but he was indisputable brilliant at painting, as was Mozart at composing.
This bothered me always, because there is an inevitably invalidity to words. Also because i can't draw or read/write/play music (yet!) However, I still think words are rapturously beautiful, and as important in our everyday lives as other art-forms. So my sense of inferiority is, to some degree, flighty and jealous. At the same time I can't help but feel some degree of truth in these thoughts, and as a mantra of mine is absolute honesty will always lead to good. (As in absolute honesty that my life has no meaning and further purpose may at first be devastating, but when addressed is the only way for me, or anyone to achieve true liberty in life) So I as I always do, I read. I read about music and art, and on the philosophy of perception and aesthetics (Emmanuel Kant, Fredrick Nietzsche)
I have a conclusion. Not a conclusion that changes my ambitions. In fact, as I suspected, it made me more comfortable with them. And that is, in philosophical terms, music is the most important form of art. The most enduring. Closest to the essence of life. This is of course following the philosophy of Kant, which can be argued with. Kant, and many others, believes that everything we see is a perception unique to every individual. No human sees things as they really are, but as representations of what they really are. This makes sense to me. It explains why beauty is subjective, and why what looks beautiful may not always feel sensuous. Or, in some films and music, images and places are evoked without ever bringing them up. Just look at the absurdist masterpiece ‘Synecdoche, New York’ (Favourite film ever, by the way) So that essentially denotes any visual form. Even photography, as raw as it, will rely on the perception of the photographer when he chooses to take the picture, and the individual who looks at the final image. Simplified: What is green to me is purple to you.
One can denote, and this is in broad, almost irrelevant philosophical terms (as it was before and will be till the day language falls) writing even more than the visual form. Writing, unlike sound or sight, is a human invention. Though I shudder to say it, it’s a…. a tool which we invented for communication. That our dreamy imaginations managed to turn this tool into a dazzlingly nuanced and effusive form of expression is I think a triumph of the human race. But this does not distract from the fact that in all its aesthetic beauty, and emotional range, it’s fundamentally artificial. This doesn’t mean you shouldn't read. Don’t be stupid. Many of the best writers (Samuel Beckett) have been aware of this invalidity, and reflected in in their abrsudist writing. Art forms like surrealism, absurdism, and Dada are all aware of the invalidity of our creations, particularly language, which is why they seek to make art of the meaningless and incomprehensible. It’s part of why Beckett was a great writer, and also part of why Paul Auster (a post-modernist writer, and responsible for one of my favourite novels) can get a bit tiresome when, among his surrealist absurdism, continually writes about writers talking about writing, and metaphysically reflecting on writing. It’s interesting in some cases, but not continually, as it essentially reiterates a sadly inevitable fate.
Why I think Music is different, is because I’m not sure if it’s a representation of anything. It could be argued that music, with their own set of aesthetics is an obscured representation of what actually is, but I’m not convinced, and neither were philosophers like Fredrick Nietzsche. Music does not even attempt to try and represent anything in life. It is not created from observation, but is a sheer force of will. It cuts though both physicality and shallow image right to the centre of your brain; and stimulates all of it. Whereas other forms are merely representations, Music is life, and not one that always needs to be learned. It’s a form that is fundamental to us all, because it’s believed by some psychologists that we all possess some innate knowledge of our humanity. This is complicit with the objectivity with musical geniuses. Whether you like Beethoven or Chopin more, Mozart was undeniably a genius. He wasn’t so much writing compositions as channelling something he had since infancy, or as Peter Schaffer described ‘taking dictation from God’
“…Inextinguishable suggests something that only music itself can express fully: the elementary will of life. Only music can give an abstract expression of life, in contrast to the other arts which must construct models and symbolise. Music solves the problem only by remaining itself; for music is life whereas the other arts only depict life. Life is unquenchable and inextinguishable; yesterday, today and tomorrow, life was, is, and will be in struggle, conflict, procreation and destruction; and everything returns. Music is life, and as such, inextinguishable.”
-- Carl Nielsen (Composer)
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