Since seeing Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk on creativity, I’ve thought a lot about muses. When we hear someone refer to a muse, we often think of a beautiful woman with whom a poet is deeply in love, writing poem after poem after poem for. I shudder to think of how many poor women have been tormented by moronic attempts at verse because of this personification. Ladies, you have my sympathy.
That’s not to say muses aren’t important. Gilbert’s talk made me realize that, far from simply being an easy source of inspiration, they’re a necessary mechanism an artist uses to keep from becoming too self-absorbed while creating some very personal and subjective things. A muse brings coherence to these personal experiences, making them transcend the person. It simultaneously allows an artist to maintain a comfortable distance from whatever it is that torments him to create and provides a framework in which others can understand those creations.
I’ve always been rather serious about art. It’s more about obsession than fun and it often carries the burden and the zeal of a religion. There’s this notion that all the mistakes I’ve ever made, anything I might consider foolish or shameful, is somehow made right by creating something that transcends myself – something that somehow taps into the universal and eternal. I love the way art can turn ugliness into beauty and bring order to what can seem so cruel and random. The flip side of this is a constant dissatisfaction with whatever I create and a feeling of almost frantic discomfort when I don’t feel I’ve created enough.