Exploring the Well

Wandering the savage garden...

Listening to Music

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Yesterday I posted a reference to a song by Porcupine Tree, a band I’ve recently started enjoying. I listen to a lot of music from various genres, being a musician and a lover of music; for me it’s relaxing and edifying.

But one thing stands out: I don’t really limit what I listen to, outside of my tastes. There are forms of music that I don’t care for – I’m not much into hip-hop or rap, for example, and electronica has limited appeal for me, and some forms of speed metal are boring.. as is most Christian music.

The limits aren’t really on words, as it turns out; there are some songs I find distasteful because of their content, but for the most part, if it’s written well, it has a chance to resonate with me.

So I find that I probably won’t appreciate a song that shrieks how “God is so terrible, why didn’t I get my Barbie doll, where’s my Jaguar,” there’s nothing that says that I wouldn’t appreciate a song that shrieks how God is so terrible, how could He let something happen?

I can handle an expression of pain that results in a rejection of God – I can find the art in that. I don’t enjoy an expression of greed or arrogance. To me, that’s usually not art, that’s just foolishness.

So I find I can handle Rush easily: intellectual music, performed fantastically, even though the artists are atheists to the best that I can tell. They’ve largely rejected the notion of God, but they are rational about it – and the things they condemn in religion are many of the same things I condemn in religion.

I can handle Yes easily: excellent musicians, writing in purple prose (the music wins over everything), and their spiritual searchings are exactly that: searchings for meaning in spools of random color. As a band, Yes has trouble defining things objectively… but I can deal with that, even while (hopefully) holding objective reasonings myself.

I can handle Tool easily: excellent musicians, writing very angry content. Their rejections of God end up being Jeremiads, fierce considerings calling God to task for what the world is. I can understand (and even share) that sense of anger, even though my final conclusion is not to reject God.

I can handle AC/DC: simple musicians, perhaps, but the music is all Freudian id. I find much of their music laughable in content, but the force behind it is a pleasant association.

Led Zeppelin. Hendrix. Porcupine Tree. Matisyahu.

I guess the point behind all of this is that I don’t have a problem dipping my toes into non-Christian water – because it’s all part of the world in which I live, and to me it’s part of what makes the world what it is for me, a setting in which I can appreciate and glorify the Name of God, even though there are things in this world that attempt to demean the source.

Editing yourself

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One of the things I really struggle with is the process of self-editing. I do it inconsistently, and I don’t always like the results. What I want is to have a dial of sorts, some way to turn off the filters that control how I present myself.

I’m a fairly mercurial person; when I’m riding in the car with my youngest son, I do all kinds of weird things to make him laugh. I come up with voices, and say odd things; I make up words (one from yesterday was “stumorbecilediot,” a portmanteau of stupid, moron, imbecile, and idiot, as a way of referring to Team Fortress 2 avatars.)

It’s fun, and freeing.

Along the way I also listen to a lot of music, being a musician. I love plays on words, and when musicians let their psyches go to find some combination of word and flow to create a thought that wouldn’t have occurred otherwise. Sometimes it’s just because I don’t understand the words they’re singing – “Swim with me into your blackest eyes” is one that comes to mind – but even if the lyrics are wrong, the impact is intriguing.

I looked them up; that’s actually the right lyric, from Porcupine Tree’s “Blackest Eyes.”

(There’s a thread to chase about what music I listen to and how it affects my faith, but this isn’t that post. Stay on topic, me! I still have a point to offer! I will get to it!)

The way I edit myself, however, means that I prevent myself from reaching some of those works of art: I might say something that would serve, but the filter, the editor in my head, says “…. nope. Cut it out.”

In most cases, that’s probably fine; like I said, I can be mercurial, and I come up with some really silly, really stupid things. But I think I diminish my own life by doing so to the degree that I do it. I wish I knew how to turn it down, to let more of the little flashes of oddity shine through.

Look at the directive to myself in the parenthetical a few paragraphs ago; sometimes when I write, I do that a lot. Annoyingly so, if the truth is told; not long ago I read something I’d written a few years back, and I felt like I needed to take a good, long, hard look at myself in the mirror. It seems like every other sentence was written with a smirk and a joke. It wasn’t at anyone’s expense – a lot of it was self-aware – but it was also saccharine in the end.

But isn’t that part of being an artist? Flying without a wire, saying what’s inside, setting it free for the purpose of seeing what chord it might strike in the hearts of readers? Showing someone the joy and pain in your soul, baring it and letting others grow through the exposure?

That’s what I think my filters sometimes prevent. I think I hold myself back by trying to present only the best version of myself I can muster.

Avoiding Writing Prompts

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I’ve been trying to avoid writing prompts as I do the 500 words challenge. There are a few reasons why; none of them are really all that great, and I imagine that I’ll give in and use a writing prompt at some point, but I’m not ready for that yet.

One reason to avoid writing prompts is the nature of the challenge itself. I want to see how long I can do without having a writing prompt to give me something to write about. Can I actually come up with thirty one things in a row, enough that I feel passionate enough to write 500 words about them? (This is not what the challenge is about, as far as I know, but it’s how I interpret the challenge for myself.) A writing prompt is a concession to that struggle for relevance.

Another reason is to avoid exposure. Most writing prompts talk about things that are personal in nature: “How did you feel about your father? Describe your first pet. Who was your best friend when you were twelve?”

For one thing, a lot of those questions would expose my identity to strangers, and I’m not comfortable with that. I prefer being a cypher; I like preserving my anonymity. (Not just my name, but who I actually am, what makes me tick inside.)

I talk about the things that drive me, to be sure, but I usually discuss them fairly clinically, without a whole lot of the emotion that’s actually raging inside my soul; when you read something that I’m passionate about, you tend to not be able to see the passion itself. (You can probably tell that the passion is there, but the passion is shielded.)

So writing prompts tend to create a lot of introspection; I use introspection (whenever I use the word “I”) but I don’t want to actually show you my soul.

(There are lots of reasons for this, but the biggest reasons are that it’s not that interesting and you don’t want to see it; most people want to see someone else’s soul from a sense of wanting permission to invade someone else, to see their dirty little secrets. I don’t want you to see my secrets. I want you to see something that’s admirable, something to aspire to.)

A third reason to avoid writing prompts is related: I want what I write to matter somehow. I write in an ironic desire to be known (ironic because I hide myself, as I just described; I want to be known, but I want only the best part of myself to be known.) A writing prompt tends to be faintly interesting, but tends to the generic. “Everyone has a best friend; write about yours.” “Everyone has a first pet; write about yours!”

I don’t have a problem writing about my best friend (from now or from when I was young) but I don’t want a simple rehash of detail. I want to have had something to say, and a writing prompt doesn’t really require that very well.

I want more from myself.

Snow

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It’s snowing.

I was born and raised in the Deep South (meaning: Florida). My relationship with snow is still at the point where I’m amazed and entranced by it. When I drive in it, I have to be really careful, because I like to watch the snow – and driving in snow is like driving in mud, you need to pay attention.

I like everything about snow: the way it falls, the way it sounds – when it’s quiet and when it’s not, I like the cold, I like the brightness of it. Something about snow speaks to me of renewal, even though snow is not, in and of itself, indicative of renewal. I guess when I think of the symbolism of snow, I think of sleep and death – where the renewal is a promise, and the snow only represents the transitory phase between the then and now and the future.

Snow also apparently makes me a bit maudlin and reflective. Thankfully, it also makes me quiet.

I like walking in the snow, too.

When I was young, my father had these giant limestone rocks brought in, which he used to help him build houses (decorative stone on the houses, I guess?) and my friends and I would climb the giant piles of rock. (In Florida, these might as well have been mountains – and who knows? Maybe they were higher than Florida’s lone mountain.)

Walking in the snow reminds me of playing in those rocks – jumping from one to another, we had to worry about footing. The snow has that same air of chance and danger, because it hides what is underneath, and hides also what it can bear until it breaks.

Right now, for example, I could walk out of my front door, and not sink more than one or two inches into the snow (it’s mostly ice). But another snowfall might be completely different – and look exactly the same.

I love that. I don’t know what it says about me that I focus so easily or so completely on the snow, but I do focus easily on it, and it does have the power to capture me nearly completely.

Maybe it is the focus on transition, in my mind – the constant feeling of change, from here to an unknown future. Maybe it’s the simple unfamiliarity. Maybe it’s just that snow is fun… I don’t know.

It’s snowing, and I’m glad of it. I hope it continues to snow.

Also, since I am from the South, one of the best benefits of the snow is that it represents the cold that kills bugs. A good snow means that it’s cold enough to cut down on next summer’s flea and tick (and mosquito) population, as I understand it – and that’s something about which everyone should rejoice.

Can you tell that I’ve hit my invisible 400-word barrier, and where, without counting words? I can. That’s going to be a challenge for me throughout my 500 words journey, I think.