Daily Meditation: Monday, September 12, 2011

Artistic creation - and moral life cannot be kept separate

09/12/2011

How many artists live in anxiety and torment! To keep going, some indulge in drink, drugs, debauchery, and so on. As they are genuinely gifted, this does not prevent them from creating masterpieces from time to time. But it is others who benefit from these masterpieces, while they themselves suffer and will go on suffering, so long as they do not impose a discipline on themselves to control the dark forces destroying them. But this is not something the public generally thinks about. So long as they find certain books or works of art interesting and inspiring, they are not really affected by the tragedies experienced by the creators of these works; in fact, they will even delve eagerly into their biographies and revel in the slightest detail. There is great cruelty in this fascination, but people are not aware of it. And more importantly, they do not know that artists who have not maintained their gifts and talents through inner discipline lose them sooner or later, in this life or the next. Since they have squandered all their capital through their dissolute behaviour, they will return to earth as totally insignificant people. Artistic creation and moral life cannot be kept separate for long.