It's your fiction that interests me. Your studies of the interplay of human motives and emotion.
An artist without obsession isn't worth a damn!
I always thought Cyrano De Bergerac was a coward. He could fight a hundred swordsmen, but he was afraid of his nose, and he was afraid of Roxanne. Jam as cowardly as anybody about facing my fears. So, you spend your you years as an artist fighting those hundred people that you happen not to fear. Then you wake up one morning and realize all this time you're afraid of your nose. That's what you're going to have to face for the rest of your life. And you don't feel very courageous. But, if you don't face it, you dry up as an artist.
There are writers I know and respect who are very good about what's outside, and not too hot about what's inside.
Courage can't make you an artist, but without that courage, you won't remain one for long. First is the courage to be alone in the room where you create, and the courage to face that indefinitely, with no one to say if you are any good or not. Then, there is the courage to follow your work wherever it's going to take you. And the courage to fight for your work.
The world of psychology and the world of normal life tends to look down on obsession. It's not good for you, and certainly not good for your relationships. It's not good for a lot of things, but it's the only way to make a work of art.
We have to be realistic about the brutal demands a money culture puts on the psyche, and there is a great cost to this in terms of creativity. Look at the state of people at 65. How many of them become creative after having to survive in the money culture?
Nothing can be so bad as to be displeased with one's self.
Replacing it with a thought. I sometimes think, "What the hell. I have four working limbs right now. I'm winning just to even have the privilege of this experience!" Steering my brain onto this track of thought begins the process of being grateful for the lesson and returns my mind to a more peaceful place.
Soul is just that inner spirit. I use that inner spirit for whatever it is I do.
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