Why ambiguity?: Finding meaning

Three books informed this post: Moby Dick, King Lear and A Whaler's Dictionary "In order to understand the fool, one must think and discover, as one does with a sphinx's question, for oneself. The fool makes one responsible for one's own interpretation... by speaking one thing only in order to mean something else." - Dan Beachy-Quick, A Whaler's Dictionary In King Lear the fool is the wisest character. He says the truth beneath things and shows that the man who is supposed to be the real wise man, the king, is actually the biggest fool. That is not the point, however. Poetry and literature is purposefully ambiguous. Intentionally avoiding stating their intended meaning. Some say this is needlessly complex. If the writer has a meaning or has something important to say, why would they hide it behind fiction and overly descriptive riddles? If it is so important, why not just tell it straight? Truth, meaning and understanding come through experience. We cannot experience the same thing that the writer or poet or artist has experienced, but by working through and understanding a writer's work, or our interpretation of that work, we have gained some experience. Finding the meaning, whether it was intended or not, is the point. The act of discovering truth in literature has the effect of discovering your own process of thinking. Ambiguity is a puzzle, but as you find each piece, you discover that you are part of the puzzle as well. Every book you read and interpret, every poem, painting, photograph, landscape, word and relationship become part of you and the puzzle.

Why write? Why art?: Metaphor

Why write? Why art?: Metaphor Why do we write? Why do we create art? Why do I write on this blog? I suppose an argument could be made for it being a waste of time, but this is one of the reasons why it isn’t. Metaphor. From Wallace Stevens’ “The Motive for Metaphor” “The obscure moon lighting an obscure world Of things that would never be quite expressed, Where you yourself were never quite yourself And did not want nor have to be, Desiring the exhilirations of changes: the motive for metaphor” The mental act of metaphor changes the subject and the writer. It expresses something that will never be fully and satisfyingly expressed, and once exposed to or having created a good metaphor a person is forever changed. For example, in Moby Dick Melville compares the soul, or the inner man, or an inner need inside of us, to a miner. The quote deserves to be placed here again: “The subterranean miner that works in us all, how can one tell whither leads his shaft by the ever shifting muffled sound of his pick? Who does not feel the irresistible arm drag?” - Melville. Reading Moby Dick changed me in several ways. To get the full effect of the quote it is necessary, I believe, to read the book, but ever since I read that (it took the second read for it to really sink in) I’ve had an image of a miner digging through the mine shaft of my soul. Sometimes I think I can even hear that muffled pick chipping away at the rock. But still, why? The above almost sounds horrifying, but the soul is an idea that we will never fully express or understand. This metaphor has given me a place to start. The most amazing thing is that this metaphor combined with a D.H. Lawrence metaphor about a soul being a pile of unlit tinder. My understanding of the soul grows the more metaphors I discover. I will add another, happier, metaphor here. After I wrote about the following poem I added another reason for writing and art: happiness. “Of Mere Being” Wallace Stevens The palm at the end of the mind, Beyind the last thought, rises In the bronze decor, A gold-feathered bird Sings in the palm, without human meaning, Without human feeling, a foreign song. You know then that it is not the reason That makes us happy or unhappy. The bird sings. Its feathers shine. The palm stands on the edge of space. The wind moves slowly in the branches. The bird’s fire-fangled feathers dangle down. According to me and some others, the bird is the imagination. The imagination is beyond the mind, beyond reason, something we cannot control, something free and beautiful and singing. Happiness comes not from reason, but from our imaginations. Happiness comes from art.