Joseph Campbell on Art

He speaks my LANGUAGE!  Well, he speaks a super scholarly, hard-for-me-to-entirely-understand version of my language.  In any event, here's what he has to say about the phenomenon of experiencing life, as reflected through art, and the moments that follow:

One moment later, and we have classified the experience and may be having utterable thoughts and describable feelings about it--thoughts and feelings that are in the public domain, and they will be either sentimental or profound according to our education.  But according to our life, we have had, for an instant, a sense of existence: a moment of unevaluated, unimpeded, lyric life--antecedent to both thought and feeling; such as can never be communicated by means of empirically verifiable propositions, but only suggested by art.

I have those moments watching movies, hearing songs, THAT is the Chord of Truth.  That's Campbell's description.  And Art exists as the guitar player.  He doesn't always exactly strike that chord, but that's the reason he plays.  That's the reason he practices.  That's the reason art is a practice.  A thing to dedicate energy to.  When watching a play on stage, and the actor feels it, really lives that transcendent moment, it instantly reverberates amongst the audience.  The audience is a participant in the journey.  Some talk of the sense of having the audience in the palm of your hand.  A step above that is for you and the audience to be in the palm of something greater.

Shakespeare's verse hacks away, poetically, chiseling toward the heart of human life.  It is why he thrives today, and always will.  It resonates.  He was trying with his soul to make it so, and, sometimes, pure gold.  Sometimes, pure tripe.  Sometimes, pure unabashed comedy.  Couple that with human beings--actors--bringing their souls to the work already in place, and you not only have one writer attempting to hit that Chord of Truth, you have an entire ensemble, plus director, plus (ideally) stage crew, painters, production team.  The odds that that many souls working and living in the same field, the same world, the same wavelength. will reach that transcendent place are huge.  That's fucking why we do it!!  That's WHY!!  And it can't even be described!  How fucking crazy is that.  We do it to be alive.  A SENSE OF EXISTENCE, says Campbell, that is gone as soon as we try to catch it. 

Slings and Arrows nails it.  Final episode, final season, director and ever-at-odds friend stand backstage, mesmerized by the performance on stage.

"This isn't about us, is it."

"Nope.  Never was."

The Singing Dillema

Singing.

I've been a singer all my life.  I love to soar on a song.  When I gain "technique" I lose soul, and vice versa.  How how HOW do I maintain both?  I think technique is what you use to not blow out your voice.  I think soul is what you use to fucking really sing.  I have trouble doing either.

Central Park

It occurred to me, sitting here in the early evening in central park, how we are all on the same journey. If I didn't know better, I would think the runners, bikes, pedicabs whizzing by are all a parade. There's a Central Park loop that provides space for all to exercise. Everyone thinks they're alone on their own workout routine, journey, etc. But we're all running the same route. It's hugely symbolic. We are all playing the same game. We may think we're competing, that our personal physical conditioning makes us better than our competition, but look around. We're all playing together. When I look directly in front of me, I see individuals, groups, ans couples. But then I look toward the oncoming foot traffic, and I see a grand parade. To think you're a part of anything else is nothing but illusion. The truth is, we're all the same. "Fellow passengers to the grave as opposed to other creatures bound on other journeys," as Fred says in A Christmas Carol.

The thought relaxes and inspires me. Its implications scare me too, since it's easier, comfortable, and familiar to keep us separate.

Feed the Fire

Wonder wonder wonder.  Life is at a strange crossroads for me now.  My relationship just ended, my theater company is at a precipice, I am consciously tackling things that have remained up in the air.  I have been voraciously reading Joseph Campbell.  He has provided a beacon of hope and inspiration for me in this uncertain but profound time.  His wonder at the mysteries and fascinations of living as a human being propelled him through a life-long quest for understanding.  Although, maybe it wasn't a quest.  Maybe it was just a journey of understanding.

I just finished playing the Half Life 2: Episode Two.  (SPOILER ALERT) An important character unfairly dies at the end.  But before he does, he says he loves his daughter.  It's the last thing he needs to say.  At the end of my life, at the end of my time, it will be known who I love and how grateful I am for this life, and I will have nothing weighing on my mind.  Just love.  Love Actually is in my mind.  "When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love."

Practicing what I preach is tough, for some reason, today.  Hence, I've got inspiring quotes spinning in my head.   Dickens said we should

"Tenderly cherish the light of Fancy which is inherent in the human breast; which, according to its nurture, burns with an inspiring flame, or sinks into a sullen glare, but which (or woe betide the day!) can never be extinguished.  To show to all that in familiar things, even in those which are repellent on the surface, there is Romance enough, if we will find it out."

 Dickens and I are kindred spirits in this.  I seek to be as one who has found God.  Those religious folks who are poor of wallet, rich of infectious spirit.  However, it is not God Above that I seek, but God that is within us all.  Campbell has taught me that "God" is a symbol of something transcendent.  God is in us, god is all around us.  Our word for it is god.  I don't claim to understand it, or live it, but it is fun for me to think about and enriching to explore.

I am an artist.  That word, artist, is a symbol.  I suspect we are all "artists."  The book I'm reading is a collection of Campbell's ideas, and is called "Reflections on the Art of Living."  I'd never heard that before - The Art of Living.  But I love it!  Life cannot be lived by the book.  By any book.  Everyone's life is different.  Learning to live YOUR life is an art.  Not a science.  In art there are no rules, there are truths.  And even when you've got it figured out, you're wrong.  I'm wrong.  Even if I communicated my truth brilliantly, it will never be heard in the way I feel it.  And that is okay.  A life spent living as close as possible to the flame of those truths will keep me warm, and warm those around me to it.  Neither of us will completely understand the fire, but maybe we can feel its heat together.  The only way to communicate is to attempt to put words (symbols) to the truths of my soul.

Now, as ever, I am seeking the fire's heat, knowing it will nurture me.  Did I take that metaphor too far?  Maybe!  I was impressed with myself that the fire image popped into my head.  Had to hold on to it!