#attempted wisdom

[harrison-abbott]

I remember somebody saying that they “hated” The Godfather (1972). They thought it was “so slow and long”.

I remember somebody saying that they “hated” The Beatles. And another person saying that they “loathed” the Rolling Stones.

I recall somebody saying that Bob Dylan “couldn’t sing.”

Another chap said that they didn’t like the Impressionist paintings when I visited the British Art Gallery in London. You know, the famous Monet ones, the Van Gogh, etc etc – all those international images. They just weren’t in to it.

On the same trip to London, I went to the Globe theatre to see a production of Julius Caesar, and there were these kids playing on their phones in the standing audience, who kept taking the piss out of the lines that the actors made.

Somebody else said that classical music didn’t interest them at all.

There was one other person that said that she watched a film that won a prestigious award and “thought it was shit.”

There was somebody else who said that an actor who also won a coveted award was a “shit actor.”

I remember handing a William Faulkner novel to somebody and they dismissed it because it was “pretentious”, without having read any of it.

I did the same thing with a passage from the New Testament, to somebody, just so they could read a 30-word part of it which I found interesting – and they shut the book in their hands and gave it back to me.

I remember trying to watch foreign films with people, when we were browsing through Netflix for something to see – and they rejected them because they didn’t want to read subtitles for 90 minutes.

There was a similar occasion where somebody dismissed a film because it was a documentary rather than feature movie; they didn’t like documentaries.

I remember somebody dismissing what I was saying because I’d read the information in a newspaper instead of from online content.

There was an English teacher in high school who advised me not to read Charles Dickens novels. “No, I wouldn’t advise anybody to read Dickens. Urgh!”

Somebody else said that Jimmy Page was a “sloppy” guitar player.

Somebody else said that Robert De Niro “always plays the same character” in his movies.

One guy said that Mozart’s music was “too perfect” for him.

Somebody else said, of the film There Will Be Blood (2007), “Nothing happens in it except when he sends his son off on the train and abandons him.”

You have to remember that it’s impossible to please everybody, when you’re trying to be creative. It doesn’t work like that. There are many clashing opinions. It’s just what people are like. There is no ‘pure’ target to aim for, where the entire 8 billion folks on the planet will adore your material. Won’t happen. But this should not stop you from creating things anyway. You have to be brave and show people your content, and be prepared that certain folk won’t be interested. It didn’t stop any of the creative people mentioned above ^ creating what they did. They did it anyway, because they were artistic.

[harrison-abbott]

To write often seems like playing songs in an empty stadium. There are no fans to cheer you on. And far less folks are interested in literature than they are music. But, as long as you have that inner drive, and a love for language, you just keep going with it anyway. There are many dead authors who cannot watch you reading their books; but you read them out of the zeal for their words. It’s essential to keep being an artist. For if you’re not that, then what are you?

[harrison-abbott]

There will be moments of despair across a random day, wherein for hours you’ll be blue and despondent, not knowing what to do with the future. But, by the evening there just might be something new that flashes into your mind. Be it a story or poem or song. And you go and work on it on your notepad or with your guitar. And then you know that creativity is just as important as your heartbeat. That’s what keeps you alive. And it’s far stronger than worry.

[harrison-abbott]

Writing was always with you. You might be scared, or in trouble, or be scared that trouble was farther down the line. But if you could just remember that you were and are able to write about it, then it makes the terror bearable. If you’re back with your pen and notebook, or the keypad at your computer, and the words in your mind, then you can cope. That’s why we write in the first place. To cope with existence. And even when we get a few words in, we start to calm and bring the anxiety under control.

[harrison-abbott]

When you thought over about what most bothered you about other people that had hurt you: the actions that they had done which hurt you a great deal: the major issue was that they had never apologised for what they said or did. They were still too stubborn to just say sorry about it. Because it was easier for them not to do so, rather than recognise that what they said was pretty awful. The easy route out for them was to avoid all of that, in order to avoid a blemish on their ego. And you still thought about their raspy sentences or their hollering insults, most days, or, most weeks: their poisonous quotations still marred you. At the same time, you were never going to get an apology. As if, you were thinking that apologies can be flown in in spectacular style, and written out in grand ink, on parchment paper. People aren’t like that. They shrivel up in their own iniquity and they choose not to budge from what they did. And it’s very hard to do with that knowledge; tricky to not understand why they can’t just alleviate and admit what they did.

[harrison-abbott]

Slights from others can damage confidence in songs, stories, essays, poems – any of your creations – sometimes for short periods, sometimes for all time. Especially those items that you had faith in before those insults were made. But, there are other moments when you can go back to that original belief that you had in the piece, and keep trying to promote it. It’s essential to keep that inner drive. No matter what other people say.

[harrison-abbott]

You wondered how it was that somebody could just fall out of love with you and you thought about that fact – that they didn’t love you anymore – when you were on the train or when you had just woken up with the sky emerging outside … you thought about it when you were boiling the kettle to make some food or just when you were walking down the street on the way to the shops and there didn’t seem like any A B C way to deal with the fact. Because it had already happened and was so long ago and you couldn’t remove it from your history. Sometimes you thought ‘Oh, just forget it,’ or, ‘the Hell with that.’ Those tended to be temporary and when you were feeling strong, with only a fleeting moment of pain, snuffed back with a mental swipe. But for the most part when you had that memory there was this hard sadness under your chest somewhere that you knew you’d never be able to pull out and it throbbed there, or, lived there, rather, with its own ghostly shadow. And the sad feeling revolved itself with a brutal nothingness, to no way of appeal. As you lie in your bed in the morning with said dawn developing outside, whilst the magpies cackle and the crows caw and blackbirds tweet … years and years having passed since you last saw that loved one and they still play their plays in your mind; and you try to figure out a way to banish that fact, even though it can’t be accomplished.

[harrison-abbott]

There come moments at night

Where a great sadness can come

Over you, alongside a sense of

Shame from your past actions.

When all of that rage floods

Away and you realise that there

Is a quiet peacefulness in simply

Being inside, under a roof, safe.

And you regret having been so

Angry with people in the past,

And the mean things you said

To them. And though you are

Safe and indoors, you realise

That you’re scared of the

Outside world, too. You worry

About the future and you can’t

Know what’s going to happen

Or whether your health is in

Jeopardy or whether you’ll

Perish without being remembered

For anything remarkable after

You go. But, you should also

Remember that you’re not the

Only worrier. Everybody does

That. And if you can find these

Moments of peace – even with

Simply listening to the sound

Of the wind in the trees outside

Your window – just relax and

Allow the shame to dilute and

Fade away. It’s okay to feel

Vulnerable and lost. Nothing

Bad’s going to happen to you

Tonight and you can rest and

Heal up for the moment.