"MedleyMisty;14917064" wrote:
*takes a seat*
I've been trying to figure out how to deal emotionally with living on a planet controlled by a species that regularly engages in atrocities and that doesn't seem to be able to make rational collective decisions to solve its problems for...well, I guess my whole life.
And of course that struggle was thrown into sharp relief this week.
So I guess my question is - does my work have meaning? Do my Sims stories contribute anything good and decent to the world? Am I helping somehow, adding some small little bit of goodness or beauty?
You asked recently in Art of Storytelling thread about "How do you define literature?"
For me, much of my definition of literature hinges on the writers' explorations of what it means to live on this planet in human form. Sometimes, the themes are what you mention above: the atrocities that people inflict on each other. Sometimes, the themes might be examining the ways that our biological, evolutionary, chemical, and genetic coding work--and how we can create individually rewarding lives within the context of this coding. Sometimes, themes might simply explore meaning--its presence, its shifting, its lasting, its temporariness, its absence.
When a writer faces--either head-on or obliquely, either through symbol or through direct representation--these questions of what it means to be a person living in a human form (or any form, really) on this planet (or on any planet, really--or even if someone where to explore what it meant to be unmanifested) then, art results.
What does art contribute?
What do we gain when we come across an honest exploration of being?
You might reflect on how you feel when you see something beautiful and significant and something that helps you feel understanding or even helps you consider new questions. How do you feel, towards the work and the writer?
Can you identify the gratitude that you feel?
If so, then realize that I, as a reader, feel that same gratitude towards your work. Would my experience as a human be less if I hadn't read your work? Yes. There is a scene when the darkness begins to respond to and long for the human in your story--I would be less in my understanding and experience if I hadn't read this.
So... if your work contributes to my experience and understanding as a being who is exploring what it means to be alive on this planet in human form, does your work have value?
(Of course that's a rhetorical question--so after your resounding "Yes," see if you can feel, for a moment, tangibly within your body and mind, what that value is.)
