Counterpoint to 'On Spring Harvests'
Morning Thoughts #11
I reserve the right to speak poetically rather than precisely. My mind changes like the seasons—do we say a landscape contradicts itself when it blooms with lush greenery after a winter of packed snow? We can write winter perspectives and summer perspectives that come from the exact same place! Whenever I sit down to write, whatever loosely sketched map I’ve brought with me for the journey gets thrown out the moment I catch wind of an inspired current. I am not a follower by nature, but I will always follow nature—especially any river or tide. Why am I reminded of this great Queens of the Stone Age song?
What did I mean by wisdom when I wrote of it yesterday morning? Was I implying that the brilliant works of Rimbaud, most of which were written by the age of 17, are destined to always pale in comparison to articles written by highly credentialed academics, ever so willing to produce proof of multiple PhDs and talk our ears off about the wise words of literary theorists? Derrida this, Derrida that? No, no, no! Give me the words of 17-year-old Rimbaud that flew out of him like fire escaping from a smashed window every time!
Now, if you’re practiced in the art of twitter or reddit arguments, you might think you’ve trapped me in a “gotcha” moment. You ask, every time we read Rimbaud and celebrate him, aren't we harvesting spring? No, I say. General rules are general for a reason—and any world that demands absolutes or silence is bound for chaos! For Rimbaud, when he spoke and wrote at 17, he was harvesting fully mature works! How do we know this? Because we can read and we can feel—here is insight, inspiration, and undiluted human feeling. Seek these three things above all else!
Sometimes wisdom is a different species altogether than insight and inspiration. There are people who can offer such good, worldly advice that we’d be fools to turn to on creative matters. Creativity leaps before consulting any laws of gravity—there’s a freedom in inexperience, that we may try things the cautiously wise would never dare because they think they know better—and have the source material to prove it. As for me, I am a non-scientist aiming at non-scientific truths (and, despite what they say today, many such truths really do exist!).
Why a counterpoint to yesterday’s post, why bring up Rimbaud at all? Because, we live in the age of anecdotes! If I was blessed enough to have enemies looking to disprove me, they could point to the example of Rimbaud and use it to dismiss every word I wrote yesterday. This demand for absolute truth or silence is one of the tendencies most responsible for the recent decline of public discourse. General rules are worth discovering and their growth is native to wisdom, and all beautiful exceptions are praiseworthy too. It is possible to hold both views! The fact of Rimbaud’s genius doesn’t prove that the average 17-year-old twitter poster or activist influencer has sage wisdom to live by.
May all the words of today’s popular journalists be confined to their personal diaries! Such journalists no longer discuss ideas. No! They just present anecdotes in favor of their own personal biases and prejudices, think their point is proven, and call it a day. You can learn more about the world today from one profound aphorism than you can from a thousand newspapers!