I always feel depressed and angry whenever the overwhelming feeling of being used happens - even in this website, sometimes it feels like it's just a tool for my thoughts and discussion to be copied/used in order for people to further their own literary ambitions (because so many want to write a bestselling novel strictly to become rich and famous). This is not a statement made from lack of recognition/fame, it's made from the pitfalls I've been exposed to throughout my life. Can you imagine what kind of life it would be just to exist as a forgotten benchmark, never to reap the full benefits of your efforts and morals?
And this relates to the domineering encumbrance I have to try and forget whenever I write - the idea of authority. How writing is nothing more than a method to exert authority over objects, other people, anything. How people just use writing to classify others, to drive them in a corner and prepackage them in method of storytelling to try and appeal to the public's sense of stereotype and therefore sense of control. Gore Vidal was once quoted as saying "I want to destroy younger authors." All the competition and nonstop classification, scrambling to get the upper hand all the time. No wonder a lot of established authors are reclusive - all they wanted is to forge their own path and write the best literature they could, not to be exposed to people clawing at their heels and trying to undermine them, most likely starting from when they were young and continuing to their current age.
This is only one part of the overall stress that I have to fend off every day. But I should make it clear that I'm very well aware this can be seen as expressing my frustrations, which Virginia Woolf would warn against as I've mentioned in the past, or bordering on "singing my distress" as André Breton wrote...
...but it's still necessary. And I know why.
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