Which is worse?

Writing a memoir which contains passages of events that never happened or exaggerates real events to make them more “interesting” (a la James Frey).

Plagiarizing three four other novels when writing one’s own novel (a la Kaavya Viswanathan, who recycled text from the novels of Sophie Kinsella, Meg Talbot, Megan McCafferty, and Salman Rushdie).

What’s your vote? The rationale for your choice is also welcome.

Below are some other “words of wisdom” bestowed upon me by the person who assumed that, based on a brief viewing of a couple of my works, my motives could be judged and that I was in need of his guidance. I’m amazed by the pomposity of his viewpoint and this assumption that I do not know myself. I also added emphasis to the occasions where the word “self” is used, just to note how frequently he applied it.

Who you are shapes what you do–NOT the other way around. Logically, then, if you yearn to be what you’re not at the expense of what you are, even though every step is taken with positivity and hope, there is a certain intrinsic negation in that.

I disagree. Action does influence being. To act “as if” one is confident, for example, can lead to increased self-assurance. The reason is that a person has the opportunity to practice and reinforce a healthier thought and behavior which is then internalized, becoming part of the self. And who is to say that yearning to be what one is not is a denial (comes at the expense) of what one is? Yearning can be formulated into a goal and acted upon. What we yearn to be is worthy of consideration. This dichotomy is a false one. We do not have to choose between being one way or another.

To make this more concrete, let’s say a woman is shy. This way of being does shape her and affect her interaction with the world; she takes fewer risks, has fewer friends, finds work that is beneath her true capabilities. She could continue in this way, or she could decide to practice new behaviors, such as taking a public speaking class, going to social events, so that she can engage the world more fully. Is her desire to do this, to be more social, a negation of herself?

Or take healthy habits. Eating right, exercising, and getting needed rest help a person operate at optimal levels. If one started eating fast food every day, stopped working out, and kept odd sleep habits, his body would be negatively impacted, and a dysfunctional body can affect mental health. Likewise, a person with depression can manage the illness more effectively with good physical self-care. Who you are — a depressed person — may shape what you do, that is, it might predispose you to self-neglect. But being a depressed person does not have to dictate what you do, and to yearn for wellness is not a negation of one’s being.

You know the line you perceive between what’s you and what’s everything else? You’re searching on the wrong side of it (based on a line from an old self-realization poem I wrote). YOU never will be found on the outside of you.

First of all, I was amused that the critiquer felt compelled to add that he had written this, as if this lends it greater import, or as if this idea is original. Secondly, that line to which he refers is moveable and only determined within oneself, so how is the critiquer to know that I’m searching on the wrong side of the line? Thirdly, again with the dichotomy! People interact with and are influenced by their surroundings and vice versa. We can find ourselves in many places, in many ways.

Once you hear a thing, it becomes yours to accept or reject: if it isn’t ringing false, then it’s to some degree now ringing true.

Maybe it’s just not being perceived. Or maybe the recipient has low self-esteem, an undefined sense of self. She may be a person who seeks validation from others; this is unfortunate, but it’s sometimes the case. So if you say to her, “You’re a loser who will never achieve anything in life,” it may “ring true” for her, but it doesn’t mean it is true. If “it isn’t ringing false” to her, if she accepts the statement from you, then it has the power to manifest as her reality. Until she comes to trust and value her own perceptions, it’s pretty difficult to truly accept or reject what people tell her about herself. When people believe they know The Truth and apply this by pronouncing on the character of others, that is abusive and unhelpful behavior. Sadly, vulnerable people are easy targets for this kind of treatment.

The whole thing about art from the standpoint of the artist is that it rings true when it’s an actual act of self expression, and rings false when it’s simply an attempt at making “art.”

Okay, and the point here? Who decides what is an “actual act of self expression?”

Many people find the idea of being “artistic” (i.e., being an artist or a poet) attractive: they think such labels will elevate them in some way. So, the web and the world are filled with people essentially wasting their time producing works that–whatever their merit or lack of it–are nothing more than bids for approval or reassurance or validity or status; and all of these gestures are simply irrelevant.

Right, so the “true” artist does not care if anyone ever sees his work. He doesn’t want to hear that his efforts have an impact, nor does he want to make his living by selling his pieces. Because to sell one’s artwork is, in essence, a bid for “approval or reassurance or validity or status.” Oh, and apparently if these are among his motives for creating, then it sullies the work. According to this statement, the child who draws a picture for her mother to give as a gift, and who beams when mother praises it and thanks the daughter, this child has actually wasted her time, and what she has done is irrelevant.

In this case, I believe the critiquer was implying that my use of the word “artist” as applied to myself was motivated by the desire to be elevated. You see, he could “see” me and know this. I call myself an artist because I am and I can. I don’t need anyone’s permission to use this self-descriptor, nor do I need validation. And you don’t need permission either. If I didn’t call myself an artist, I’d still create art.

You are trying to invest meaning into your life, when in fact that only adds another obscuring layer over the meaning that’s already there–and which you’re distracting yourself from finding.

The meaning that’s already there?! Perhaps there is no meaning to life except for what a person decides; that is, what a person invests by his actions.

I don’t care if one writes good poetry or bad, pastes up assemblages, collages, or whatever. I care that such efforts be powered by something fundamental in their creator’s self. When they’re not, the streets of life become littered with false fronts, masks, and wasted paper.

Again, how can the critiquer know when a person’s efforts are not motivated by her self? He’s not inside her mind. He can claim she’s making art for approval, but someone else might disagree. Who’s right? Furthermore, she is the final authority on what powers her. And again, it’s possible to make art because one needs to express oneself and also make art because one desires recognition.

Any moment you are not fully alive, you must be partially dead. … One does not build a tree from the leaf tips down, but from the roots up.

Gosh, that’s profound.

The first creative act is the discovery of the self. All that’s not an expression of that self is a diversion. There are no “opportunities to be creative”: one IS creative, or one is a great deal less so–but, again, this is all in service of the self, and NOT in distraction from it.

This was written in response to my stating that I’d had many challenges in the past year that provided opportunities to be creative. Perhaps I should have said they provided me with opportunities to respond creatively, but the distinction seems minor; because he is so sure of his view, so busy lecturing me, he missed the point. Regardless, I believe life itself is an opportunity to be creative, and we engage this to the extent that we recognize we are creators.

I look into people and read them. I’ve done this all my life, and when asked how it is that I can do that, my response has been how can others not. Perhaps everyone can do this, but doesn’t; perhaps I see a color that few others see. I really don’t care. This is the world I live in: the walls many believe in aren’t necessarily opaque or impassible to me.

This reminds me of the kid in the movie, The Sixth Sense: “I see dead people.” How special. So, this guy has never laid eyes on me, never met me in person, never taken the time to read my blog, and yet he can “see” me. But here’s the rub: his responses to me absolutely lacked empathy. The closing statement of his last email was:

I don’t find solidarity in commiseration, and don’t really have a place for confessionals whose fulcrum is exterior to one’s heart (i.e., your pointing to circumstance, rather than to what you are and feel)–be that in art or relationships or life. For the time being–your time being, that’s probably the best critique, and all, I have to offer you. If you want to discuss ideas or processes, great. If you want to defend yourself or offer proof, then that’s that exterior fulcrum thing again: prove what you have to prove to yourself–not with “evidence,” but by weighing it in the scales of your own heart.

Uh-huh. Thanks for your input. In reading this statement, you might get the impression that I had sought him out and he had decided I wasn’t up to his level for it to be worth this time. What really happened is that, for some reason, he went beyond my general request (by placing a poem in a forum for critique) to engaging outside of the forum to impart his “wisdom.”

The overall tone of his messages gave me the heebie-jeebies. If I had been a man, or if I had been his contemporary (age sixty-something), I wonder whether he would have been so condescending. I have the impression he sees himself as a sort of “guru” whose mission is to enlighten others. I have encountered men like this before, though over the years my immunity has increased. His motives may be benign, but as a trusted confidant said to me, “I suspect that he is at least the top half of a strange authority issue looking for a bottom half to work out some weird codependency issue of his own.” He would probably insist that in this post I am defending myself and offering proof. What I’m doing is processing “aloud” my reflections on his words, because it’s what I do to understand my experiences, and because I believe someone reading this may benefit. I also wanted to have a bit of fun with this; I’m usually magnanimous, but his attitude begs ridicule (just a bit).

I received feedback regarding my creativity that I’ve been mulling over.

“Your poems, like the two of your collages I’ve seen, are constructed of things you think to be already artistic. With the collages, the images may sometimes become greater than the sum of their parts, but you act to prevent that by sticking in something preciously verbal, and this bit of intellectualism turns the rest of the piece into not much more than a nice place for a nice “saying.” But a nice frame for someone else’s saying does not leave much, if any, room for expression of self. True, you spend time on these, and that may be a small release (or a big postponement or distraction); but that’s not at all the same as the expansion of self through (or into) art.”

In further communication with my assessor, I contemplated the additional feedback:

• that I’m motivated, but that I’m searching outside of myself to express myself;
• that I want my works to mark me as an artist or a poet and that I’m seeking this through my pieces rather than in them;
• that by using poetic components in my poems, and assembling collages from bits of other works, I am using them as a foil;
• that these same works, if created by someone absolutely invested in them (for their own sake) would mark the person as artist or poet by nature and not imitation.

So in essence, according to the critiquer, I have been playing at being an artist and writer (particularly poet). Because the assessment was given in a gentle manner and I sensed good intent, and because some of the ideas had merit, I entertained them. It has been a weekend of questioning: Am I being authentic in what I create? What do I owe myself when I create? What do I owe the world? When I make art or write, are my actions powered by something fundamental to me, or are these acts only bids for reassurance, approval, status, or validity? What responsibility does one accept when donning the mantle of “artist” or “writer”?

For a couple of days I felt self-conscious about posting. My blog is full of quotes by other people, and I consider it a scrapbook of things that interest me and which I share with others; the critiquer suggested that I am “running the errands of greatness” rather than expressing my own. I replied to the second critique and this morning received a response. I read it and realized something: Good intentions do not imbue validity to what is being said. I’d posted a poem on the forum for critique. What I received besides a critique of the poem was a critique of my motives for creating, and the judgment that I am trying to prove myself. I was admonished to do “groundwork” first, that before I take up a brush or pen I should be able to express myself by simply being. Words that sound wise, but they are offered by someone who truly does not know me.

One thing about my blog is that it’s pretty easy for readers to see my vulnerable spots, and these vulnerabilities can be keyed into and used by readers in their comments. I’m a sincere person and consider the input of other people. It was a good experience in sifting and discerning what’s worth attending to.

As for answering the questions I posed to myself, I create because it gives me pleasure, and because it is a natural act for me. I call myself an artist and a poet because I am, and because no one owns the right to decide who is or isn’t. Creativity is play, it is expression, it is self-education. What matters is that these activities bring me joy. This is enough for me.

I believe that the highest quality of life is full of art and creative expression and that all people deserve it. I believe in a broad definition of what art is and who artists are: Barbers, cooks, auto detailers, janitors and gardeners have as much right to claims of artistry as designers, architects, painters and sculptors. Every day, our streets and school buses become art galleries in the form of perfectly spiked hair, zigzagging cornrows and dizzying shoelace artistry.

–Frank X. Walker, Creative Solutions to Everyday Challenges from NPR series This I Believe