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A Lecture for Someone
Apr. 22nd, 2004 01:00 amYesterday, it occurred to me that the ends cannot possibly justify the means. The reasoning is pretty simple: when you take a given action, you cannot know with certainty what the result will be. Therfore, the connection of an action to its result will always contain a certain amount of coincidence; even in the controlled conditions of a laboratory performing a chemical reaction I've personally observed dozens of times and moreover worked out in the abstract, there will sometimes be a strange outlier. Maybe the air has a higher ozone level than usual. Maybe the gas line cut out for a fraction of a second. Maybe the water table is turning over. Bearing in mind what can go wrong with a simple procedure in a controlled environment, it takes little imagination to infer the instability of complex procedures in uncontrolled environments -- social and political interactions, where most of the "ends justify means" discussion occurs. I've had people yell at me for saying hello.
What it all boils down to is this: even if questionable means lead to a good end, you can't be certain it was a causal relationship, nor can you know the same thing wouldn't have happened without your actions. Certainly, it isn't healthy to harbor regret for past, unchangeable actions, but that's a far cry from backwards-justifying. After all, how can you know that this end is the end? Time is still moving forward.
By the same token - time moving forward - you can't know that any given piece of art is your best work, or any given year is your pinacle year. It's ridiculous to assume that life is a bell curve, and that eventually you'll fall as far as you've risen. Bell curves don't use time as an x-axis! They describle populations, not the progress of a single person. There is no "over the hill" because there is no hill. Look at the pattern of anyone's life; that's not the way it works. That would be like saying that success causes failure, that there's some kind of balance between the two. Life doesn't have some gravitic force working upon it, pulling down whatever you put up.
Stop comparing where you are and what you're doing to where you have been in the past, or where you may be in the future. Do what seems right now and do it the best you can. If you make something that's good enough, but you know you can do better, then do better . . . but that doesn't make the "good enough" thing any less inherently good. You can never see your own progress clearly anyway; there's a certain lack of perspective involved in not having enough distance, and there's a better than even chance that you're not looking at all the data.
Ultimately, when it comes to art, what people like is not neccessarily the stuff that is the best, or the most profound. People like the things that resonate with them, that express something they need or want to feel. If you give yourself the opportunity to mess up occasionally, you give yourself the right to experiment -- and one of those experiments might be what someone needs to see, even if everyone else rejects it. Moreover, through seeing what did and didn't work, even on a subconscious level, you give yourself more tools with which to improve. Practice and experimentation are neccessary. By definition, you can't innovate without trying something new. Great Art Takes Risks. And even repetitive, safe art can make people happy - witness the success of fast food restraunts, boy bands, and Thomas Kinkaid. There are people who read "Love Is. . ." every day, and it makes their lives more bearable. In other words, even if you keep doing the same mediocre thing over and over again, you will develop a fanbase of people who are looking for consistency. You can't lose.
Unless, of course, you don't try. This I take as a personal affront, because you've stolen from me by not using your talent - by hoarding your monopoly on the inside of your head. So if you're worried that people might think less of you for something "inferior" you create, rest assured that I will think less of you for not creating at all. And, you know, I'm evil and have a vast criminal empire that is surveiling you at this very moment. That sound in the bushes? That's one of my guys, and he's jumpy. As a matter of fact, everyone you know is secretly working for me. That's just how devious I am.
What it all boils down to is this: even if questionable means lead to a good end, you can't be certain it was a causal relationship, nor can you know the same thing wouldn't have happened without your actions. Certainly, it isn't healthy to harbor regret for past, unchangeable actions, but that's a far cry from backwards-justifying. After all, how can you know that this end is the end? Time is still moving forward.
By the same token - time moving forward - you can't know that any given piece of art is your best work, or any given year is your pinacle year. It's ridiculous to assume that life is a bell curve, and that eventually you'll fall as far as you've risen. Bell curves don't use time as an x-axis! They describle populations, not the progress of a single person. There is no "over the hill" because there is no hill. Look at the pattern of anyone's life; that's not the way it works. That would be like saying that success causes failure, that there's some kind of balance between the two. Life doesn't have some gravitic force working upon it, pulling down whatever you put up.
Stop comparing where you are and what you're doing to where you have been in the past, or where you may be in the future. Do what seems right now and do it the best you can. If you make something that's good enough, but you know you can do better, then do better . . . but that doesn't make the "good enough" thing any less inherently good. You can never see your own progress clearly anyway; there's a certain lack of perspective involved in not having enough distance, and there's a better than even chance that you're not looking at all the data.
Ultimately, when it comes to art, what people like is not neccessarily the stuff that is the best, or the most profound. People like the things that resonate with them, that express something they need or want to feel. If you give yourself the opportunity to mess up occasionally, you give yourself the right to experiment -- and one of those experiments might be what someone needs to see, even if everyone else rejects it. Moreover, through seeing what did and didn't work, even on a subconscious level, you give yourself more tools with which to improve. Practice and experimentation are neccessary. By definition, you can't innovate without trying something new. Great Art Takes Risks. And even repetitive, safe art can make people happy - witness the success of fast food restraunts, boy bands, and Thomas Kinkaid. There are people who read "Love Is. . ." every day, and it makes their lives more bearable. In other words, even if you keep doing the same mediocre thing over and over again, you will develop a fanbase of people who are looking for consistency. You can't lose.
Unless, of course, you don't try. This I take as a personal affront, because you've stolen from me by not using your talent - by hoarding your monopoly on the inside of your head. So if you're worried that people might think less of you for something "inferior" you create, rest assured that I will think less of you for not creating at all. And, you know, I'm evil and have a vast criminal empire that is surveiling you at this very moment. That sound in the bushes? That's one of my guys, and he's jumpy. As a matter of fact, everyone you know is secretly working for me. That's just how devious I am.
