Archive for art
Ideal and Actuality
I am convinced that many suicides come about because of a deeply felt tension between ideal and actuality. Artists strike me as being especially prone to despair as a result of the gap between their ideal and their ability to embody this ideal concretely.
This is not to say that such tension is an entirely negative phenomena. On the contrary, it’s the driving force behind human creativity: apprehending possibilities and then realizing them (or at least attempting to).
At the same time, we must recognize that this is also at the root of all compulsive and destructive behavior. Ideal becomes obsession becomes insanity. We run ourselves to death chasing after the horizon. We become dragged around by our goals, like a fish caught on a hook.
Good fortune awaits if you can grab hold of an ideal, but woe betide you if you don’t know how to let go of it.
Chaos Never Died 