One of my best friends recently read a book by Mitch Albom (it was one of his obscure ones, I don't remember which), and expressed to me his slight disappointment with it. To be entirely honest, I’m not a huge fan of Mitch Albom either. I’ve tried to read Tuesdays with Morrie a number of times, but I just can never manage to finish it. (Granted, that is the only Mitch Albom book I've ever tried, so that is probably a slightly unjust statement.) It feels overly sentimental to me, I guess. Don’t get me wrong—I love sentiment and emotion—but over-the-top sentimentality and warm-fuzziness are two things that make me uncomfortable and that I would generally rather do without. Maybe I just need to try it again or read something else by Mitch Albom.
I sound like a modernist. Modernism in all art, literature especially, emphasizes man’s inability to use words or art to describe human experience. They called it “the crisis of meaning”—believing that there is so much meaning in human life, experience, and emotion that man’s flawed usage of words and creative art can’t accurately describe it at all. So why try? Well, the modernists replied, trying, even in the simplest of terms, is better than not trying to express that meaning at all. So there you have it. Maybe all of this is the reason that I like songs like “I Feel My Savior’s Love” and “My Heavenly Father Loves Me” so much more than songs like “O Divine Redeemer.” Hm. Anyway, that was a really long and convoluted and abstract way of saying that I don't like some art forms that seem to try too hard to depict emotion—so much that they feel a little bit overdone and “pearls before swine”-ish to me. And maybe a little emotionally manipulative too? I’m not sure about that one. I’d have to take that one case by case, probably, before I cast that aspersion on them all.
Um, I feel a little bit emotionally exposed now, just by explaining all that. I hope it didn’t come out (my fingers, that is) wrong. Because so often, I feel like Moroni—that “when [I] write, I behold [my] weakness and stumble because of the placing of [my] words” (Ether 12:25). Granted, I don’t “fear lest the Gentiles [or you, for that matter] shall mock at [my] words” or anything, but I do often feel my great inadequacies in writing, and that I’m not able to clearly say what I’m trying to. I’m trying to explain things in just the right way so that perhaps through all those words, something came through that actually got at what I meant. Other times, I use a few words as possible with as much meaning packed into each one as I can get, and hopefully it’ll show through at some point.
As I’ve thought more about this idea of keeping emotional displays entirely honest and sacred when necessary, I’ve tried to learn more about how to do like the Savior did. He hid great, precious truths in parables, and then those who were ready for them could accept them, and those who weren’t didn’t even know the difference. I think poetry serves a very similar function. So I’ve been trying my hand at writing poetry on occasion. I’m really, really not very good, but I’m learning just how intentional I can be with my words, how to save them and make every one of them really mean something, and thus, to not be wasteful with my words. I guess in terms of modernist writers, my prose is like Faulkner (verbose and wordy), and my poetry is more in the style of Hemingway (succinct and using very few words to say a lot). But since I’m still trying to figure out the Hemingway side of things, I’m even more insecure about my poetry than my prose. Sigh. Maybe one day I’ll figure it out.
It goes back to honesty, I guess. I just want to be so, so honest. And I guess situations specifically designed to create excessive or contrived emotion just make me a little wary. The fortunate difference is that everyone has different sensitivities to emotionally manipulative situations, and we're all different enough to have unique tolerance levels for that kind of thing. Thank goodness.
Thoughts?
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I know what you mean about feeling that emotion and feelings are private. I didn't realize how private they are to me until I got married and I started sharing them with Jenni and realized I rarely had shared them before.
It's all on a spectrum, though. I am pretty open with others (many people) about things about me that many feel are too personal to share that freely without having developed a certain level of trust/friendship. I feel like, however, it allows others to see me a little more for who I am (hoping that isn't a problem) and sort of indirectly invites them to open up to me, so we get to know each other better. Generally, though, I am pretty emotionally detached from such things. I guess that's why I can give them out so freely.
I said, though, that I share things ABOUT me. I am much more private when it comes to things that ARE me. Things in which I am emotionally invested are harder for me to share. Ideas that I feel strongly about and opinions that define my way of being/functioning are personal. Maybe it's just my way of protecting my opinion of myself. I like who I am, but I know that I am different than many (most) people. (I had a recent experience that reiterated that to me.) I have felt misjudged and misunderstood for sharing such things that are important to me. I don't like that, and it hurts. So, I guess that privacy, for me, is largely self-protection.
Interesting post, Lis...
Thanks.
Now I'm all thoughtful and introspective when I need to go study about the adrenal glands...
I thought your comment about things being emotionally manipulative was very interesting. I've never thought of things that way before--but I totally know what you mean! Because I recognize now how much I don't like those sorts of things.
Hymns was a good example. There's this one hymn I will not sing. Something about Children in Deseret or something. My mom likes the song, I'm sure a lot of people like the song, but when I was reading the words, I got an awful feeling and I won't sing it--because it's like BRAINWASHING. Do you ever feel that way about hymns? Okay--well, the point is, I do. And I won't sing it.
Sometimes things are overly sentimental and they do come across as a little manipulative--they're trying to get you to feel a certain way. Like the story about the sun and the wind trying to get a man's coat off. Overly sentimental things are more like the force of the wind, than just telling the story and letting you feel what you feel.
Also--keep writing poetry. I have a proposition for you about that. If you'll take it. I'll get you on facebook.
Love,
Jen
My comment is going to be a lot shorter than the ones before mine: I LOVE YOU!!! You're amazing and I also love your writing! You should definitely keep up with it. And then read it to me. Like you read Love That Dog to me. That was great :)