Day 171 Arcistry

What is arcistry?

I use the arc as a symbol to embody the idea that the process is more essential than the result, which I apply primarily to the artistic process, because I feel so strongly (this comes from personal experience) that so much of the gratification of creating goes underappreciated, underexperienced if you will, and so much of the gratification is deferred, conditioned on a positive result that may or may not happen. Reaction to one’s work, of course, is important, and an integral part of creating art, but I realized with my poetry, for example, that once I got a wonderful reaction from the 20 people whose opinion I care about the most, the rest was just gravy for the ego. Of course I would like to be widely known and appreciated but nothing can top the feeling I get while writing and rewriting letters, my poetry, my short stories. It is during their creating that all the fun occurs.

I wish that experience for all the actresses who toil in plays they love that never get turned into movies, for artists who paint for themselves and a few friends but who maybe never get shown in a gallery, guitar-strummers who come up with lovely tunes that never make the top-ten. Not to mention mothers who can’t wait for their kids to get out of diapers and don’t savor every moment of babyhood, future brides who can’t wait to get married only to miss their single life when they do, inmates so upset about being imprisoned they don’t appreciate every day they get to read more than they will ever manage to read on the outside, etc, etc.

The other major component is the arc as an embodying symbol for how almost every difficult or stressful or seemingly arbitrary or senseless situation in life can be given meaning if the perspective in which it is seen is altered. For example, you are at the base of a hill, a steep one that can easily feel like a barrier - real or psychological or both. Imagine a steep hill you are at the bottom of. You can only see the summit, but not the other side. Now, change the perspective; imagine you are seeing from the side. The hill and becomes an arc, or a bridge. The center point, that had appeared to be a barrier, now is simply the middle part of the process.

Now imagine life as a giant clock. Imagine it divided into 4 equal segments, or arcs. One can be going up an arc, as from 9:00 to 12:00, or down an arc, as from 3:00 to 6:00. Each arc can feel like an arduous climb or a free fall. But when one alters the prospective, and sets the arc "right," each segment can become a bridge. in which the crossing is much more significant than the starting or ending point.

And again, as I’m not quite so grandiose as to propound as yet, a life philosophical system, I have consciously chosen a word to evoke “artistry” because I am primarily concerned with the application of creativity in all domains, and art is the best incubator for such efforts.

However, I do like to refer to two examples of the perspective-changing as it applies to human relationships. I was many years ago utterly inspired by this Victor Frankel story in “Man’s Search for Meaning.” Victor Frankel was a psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz and applied his experience as a survivor to understand psychiatry and vice-versa. He recounted how an elderly man, a survivor as well, came in sharing his deep depression and grief over the recent death of his wife, his veritable soul-mate who’d also survived the camps - they’d been together for 50 years, and even for his children, the man didn’t think he could go on without her. Frankel asked if she would have felt as he did if he’d died first, and this man was quite certain she would have. Frankel simply noted: “Look at the horrible grief you have spared her,” and almost instantaneously, his depression lifted. This very same grief turned into a sort of joy that he bore the burden she didn’t have to, and he was able to go on, not exactly happy, but not stricken either.

For me this is a seminal story that inspired me to believe, truly, there is no situation that cannot be given meaning, if only in surviving it. I have used that, obviously, to live with all the deaths from AIDS I’ve survived, but also to make sure here, I make my time count instead of counting time.

The other seminal story is very short - It is simply Ruth Westheimer having said “I’ve had 3 very successful marriages, and three very successful divorces.” Talk about celebrating what was, over a hoped-for dashed result. And I imagine her memories of her marriages are much better than most people have of one marriage.

John Kerry might need to call me for advice after all

Love, love, love, Marc

p.s. let the blogging begin!