You can make toast with an iron, but you can't iron with a toaster.

 

I am reminded that knowing how to pound nails and use a saw does not make you a carpenter any more than knowing the rules of grammar and punctuation makes you a writer. You can have all the tools and rules under your belt, but your apprenticeship doesn't end until you forget them. Miles Davis used to say to fellow musicians, "Play everything you know, and then play something."  And the piano composer Erik Satie never owned or played a piano. I think the true mark of creative genius is playing outside of everything, including yourself. Learn the rules and how to use the tools and then throw them away.

 

In contemporary fiction writing, I look to the example of Jerzy Kosinsky. His biography and body of work illustrate a passionate disregard for convention. With degrees in history and political science he didn't waste his talents by running for office. He did what every aspiring writer should do, he married a rich woman, published for many years and then killed himself. And I must say much of my time and money could have been saved if many modern fiction writers would have done the same thing in reverse.

 

There is no direct formula for success in anything. Perseverance is essential, but only so far as when one knows the pursuit is being fueled by ability and not by ego. I know people in my personal life who both dabble at and passionately pursue their interests. The wisest of the them are happily fullfilled seperating hobby from livelihood, while frustrated and in debt are the others. But, everyone has to take their own road and discover for themselves, through this trial and error life we all live. In some sense, we are all babies, holding paper-clips, poised at the electrical outlet.

 

addendum:

Thelonious Monk, famed Jazz piano composer, most notably 'Round Midnight, was awared a posthumous Pulitzer. Announced Monday, twenty-four years after his death, the jazz community is somewhat skeptical due to the (typical) long delay. I mention Monk here because his indisputable musical genius was a product of deconstruction, similiar to what I mention above. He broke most of the rules of piano composition (like overusing minor 2nd's and dissonant repetition) and thus created his own musical voice, unique and admired to this day. I see this pattern of creativity repeated so often in all the arts, it makes me ponder at the relevance of standardized approaches.

 

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