An equal madness

This was prompted by a question I posed to a friend yesterday. While it was rooted in the normal random thass we indulge in daily, the levels it has managed to take me across, is, well simply put, awe-some.

“What is the motive behind any form of artistic expression?”

And the answer, that I have found, bounded by the limitations of rational logic and experience that plague me, is as follows:

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What runs through our veins, as thinking, intelligent human persons, is a continuous stream of colourless, unthinking, ethereal madness.
We are, by creation, ‘not-sane’.

What we appear to be during our daily interactions and motions, is at best a leashed, chained shadow of our true selves. And no matter how many layers of civilization, evolution and perfunctorization we hide our selves under; the underlying truth of our identities has a knack of always rising and opening our eyes to previously uncharted domains.

Further, the fleeting nature of this true, unaffected, honest life, means we are eternally living an existence of uneasy, self-imposed compromise. What Thoreau described as a life of “quiet desperation”, fits in snugly here as well. It is an invisible, sublime, and indeed, a pure form of elemental desperation one experiences at all points in time, which chooses to keep itself comfortably concealed mostly, only to reveal itself at the hours one perceives to be the darkest of one’s existence.

Artistes, have a language to speak in.
The choice of words is deliberate, and stands clarified as follows.
What purpose does a language serve, if one remains handicapped to connect with one’s own true self through it?
An artiste is one, who can interact with his very fabric, (and through it, perhaps with Him as well), through his language.
Thus, one observes, that the definition of the term ‘artiste’ somewhat paradoxically expands in a manner that could potentially include all of humanity in its fold, while simultaneously narrowing itself down by the added qualifier of self-conversation.

The point I am driving to, through this amazingly meandering little path, is thus, the underlying motive of any form of artistic expression, is to live a moment of the madness that one is born with; to escape from the educated rules propounded by civilization and society; to find one’s own self among the millions of shadows that cloud our very consciousness.

One may look at the entire argument from the reverse angle, and deduce that anything which allows one to free one’s mind; to lose one’s time variant image of the self; indeed, to indulge in some of the forbidden madness that lies hidden deep within our cores, is thus artistic.

While this may seem appealing and interesting at first, as images of Mozart losing himself in Don Giovanni; of Newton letting go of the world in his brand of Mathematical Physics; of an aging ascetic smiling up at the heavens in spite (or perhaps because!) of the sores all over his body, come to mind.

For the sake of self criticism, I shall quote instances of madness that might not quite seem as artistic: Hitler and his holocaust, the protagonist in ‘A Clockwork Orange’, Jack the Ripper, and many, many more.
On instances such as these, I believe, that if, the activities indulged in by the persons respectively, did indeed bring them face to face with their latent selves; if they did experience that lightness of being that comes with drinking in the madness, then yes, for their socially distorted selves, their trade, was their art; their channel to all truth, madness, bliss.

This point in time is as ripe as ever, to clarify on one minor point.
Genocide, rape and murder are crimes against humanity, no doubt. But the unthinking, essential madness in us, need not know that.
In fact, what might seem revolting in the case of Hitler, seems heroic when it appears in Newton; for it was after all a common, colourless, unbiased trait of pure madness that propelled both to drive on relentlessly, to heights previously unheard of, albeit in different directions.

As (nearly) rational humans, one would expect us to be able to differentiate between the essential force behind diverse actions ion one hand, and the variance of direction between them, on the other. Thus, what drove Hitler and Newton, and any other sage/musician/psychopath/saint/hero/legend, must boil down to one, common madness.

We’re all born the same.
What we choose to do with our most prized endowment, our madness, defines what we become.

All forms of ‘artistic expression’, are thus, simple desperate attempts at reaching closer to that which is truly us; an undying, unaffected, immovable, and essentially equal, madness.

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Good day at work this was!