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so anyway, we learned when studying Keats that the Romantics believed that an artist had to suffer, so they all starved, fought in revolutions, became junkies, whatever it took to feel they were experiencing the ups and downs of life.

whether privation really does inspire good art, i don't know, but my buddy Father Luke seems to prove the hypothesis. i don't know whether he'd consider himself a Romantic though. his writing is observational and natural, much too concrete for Romanticism. i don't think he'd subscribe to much of the premodern philosophy that they espoused either. it made more sense as a reaction to the excitement of the Enlightenment. we take being Enlightened for granted, and aim for for small-e enlightenment.

Father Luke is more the cynic. i don't consider that in any way an insult. (if you pay attention, you know i rate father luke very highly, and i wouldn't pick a description that i didn't consider high praise.) he's a big-C Cynic, as i'm inclined to be. the Cynics wanted to look beyond our conceptual framework to what is real. (Romantics also wanted to touch the real, but they believed the route you should take was different, and tended to the belief that the natural world was all that was real, and the constructed world of men never could be.) Diogenes, chief cynic, hated other people, because he thought they were all fakers. cynicism is a synonym of bitterness today because seeing through the bullshit is liable to leave you scarred. you are constantly disappointed that the world is so wrong and no one wants it to be right, that so many are only concerned with using the wrongness for gain, when we could easily all gain by doing right. we might or might not gain more as individuals, but our net gain would be huge. some people just aren't concerned with net gain.

Cynics are profoundly humanist. we are angry because we want better. we see what it is, and feel we are left with shouting to the world that this is what it is, can't you see.

we take the means that are open to us, and of course we lean to aphorism and poetry because these are the areas in which meaning can be most strongly expressed.

anyway, that's a big preamble for a small message, but it's a message i'm very glad to be able to spread in this small way. i am immensely proud of Father Luke today, because he is a published author. there is a book of poetry with his name on the cover, which i hope you will buy. it goes without saying that i strongly endorse it and urge you to buy a copy for anyone you know who appreciates a view at life that is not sheltered or blinkered.

posted by Dr Zen @ 9:09 am