Thursday 29 September 2011

Graham Greene

The sense of unhappiness is so much easier to convey than that of happiness; in misery we seem aware of our own existence. The sense of achievement, however, remains much greater with the former. This consciousness of ourselves makes anything more valued, makes anything more important. However, I do not want to value depression or misery, however alive it makes me feel. I would accept the innocence of happy naivety; the carelessness of ignorant bliss despite, or maybe because of, the emptiness that is incorporated within it.

I've never understood why people yearn for the creativity that allegedly comes from the morbid and the dark - perhaps it is easier to evoke ideas from the shadows than the light because they suggest possibility and not truth; because they suggest the unknown and the uncertain. That possibility never really exists in a smile?

2 comments:

  1. I have a hard time writing about Joy. I suppose I feel it needs no explaination or vent, whereas my toxins need releasing. I write the darkness because when it flys from my fingers, it is less present within. Wish I could say I lived in ignorant bliss. But the opposite is true. I take in more than I should, as if I lack skin. Yes, it needs release, yet a smile always contains possibility :)

    Good question.

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  2. I feel similar things actually. All my writing seems to flow better when it is about pain or suffering - even if that is in a form I have never experienced. I am sure that what you say about a release is true. It made me wonder about why Blake could write innocence poems as well as those of experience.

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