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Posts Tagged ‘Henry Miller’

Disparity

Posted in Current Events, Opinion, Quote, tagged on October 12, 2010| 2 Comments »

In expanding the field of knowledge we but increase the horizon of ignorance.
——Henry Miller

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       I have written here in the past about the growing imbalance in income and wealth between the haves and the have-nots of this country, about how unhealthy it is for us as a nation to have so many people living below the poverty line.  One in seven, a little over 14%,  of us lives below the poverty line and for children it’s an even worse one in five, 20%.  For a country so full of itself in proclaiming ourselves the best at everything  (even when the numbers don’t bear it out) these are atrocious figures.

But I thought of an equally alarming disparity in our country, and the world,  when I came across the quote above from author Henry Miller.  We have a definite gap in education and knowledge in this country that runs pretty much through the same groups as the poverty line.   We are quickly becoming a more ignorant society, placing less and less emphasis on knowledge and wisdom.  In fact, we have become a country that is suspicious of anyone displaying a modicum of either, labeling them as elitists.

 We are at a point in human existence when we have more knowledge at our fingertips than at any time in prior history yet we have all the same problems that we have had for millenia.

Ethnic wars.  Racial intolerance.  Religious intolerance.  Subjugation.  Ignorance and poverty.  Famine and disease.

For all our knowledge of how we might best survive this world, these things continue and at exponentially higher levels.  Yes, we live in a time of wonder on many levels, with breakthroughs in medicine and technology.  But until we can make our knowledge accessible to everyone, at every social strata, we are doomed to be mired in the problems that have haunted us forever.

Do I have an answer?  Of course not.  In fact, I’m not even sure I’ve addressed the real problem with these few words.   But I am worried about these gaps between us.  In an increasingly more densely populated world, it makes for a volatile and dangerous situation.

 And that is not in anyone’s best interest.

 

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The Test

Posted in Quote, tagged on July 5, 2010| 2 Comments »

The Test --- GC Myers

In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest.

—Henry Miller

This quote reminds me of all the times where I have spent innumerable hours trying to make a task easier when if I had just accepted the difficulty of the task and just went at it, the job would have been done by the time I finally got around to starting it in my supposed easier way. 

It’s a curse and one I try to avoid but one I always seem to always slide back to.  I guess because I’m a human and we always want the easy way.  We might admire the person who grinds it out but we don’t want to be that person.  We want to believe we are more clever than that, that we have all the answers and are above the need to sweat and toil.  And this is so wrong, because the answers are in the sweat and toil.

We need to struggle.  We need to test our will.    We need the experience of the hard won victory. 

We would be better for it and, in the aftermath, feel less the pressures and fears that come from avoiding the difficult in the first place.

Enough said.  It’s still a long  holiday weekend for many so why am I pushing so this morning?  Leave it for another day…

The piece at the top is new, The Test,  a small piece measuring 4″ by 6″ that is part of my upcoming show at the West End Gallery.

 

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Reflections of Henry Miller

Posted in Influences, tagged , on April 24, 2009| 1 Comment »

The Challenge Ahead

 

      From the very beginning almost I was deeply aware that there is no goal.  I never hope to embrace the whole, but merely to give in each separate fragment, each work, the feeling of the whole as I go on, because  I am digging deeper  and deeper into life, digging deeper and deeper into past and future.  With the endless burrowing a certitude develops which is greater than faith or belief.  I become more and more indifferent to my fate, as a writer, and more and more certain of my destiny as man.

      – Henry Miller, Reflections on Writing

 

This is a fragment from a book of essays, The Wisdom of the Heart, by Henry Miller, the great and controversial author.  When I was young his books such as Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn were still being characterized as “smut” and many libraries didn’t have them on their shelves for fear the moral police would swoop in and raise a fuss.  Probably many only know the existence and influence of his books from their use in a memorable Seinfeld episode, the one with Bookman the library cop whose hard-boiled dialogue still makes me hoot.  

For me, I wasn’t so much attracted to his books by the raciness of the stories but rather by his way of speaking through his words and expressing views that I found at once to be compatible with my own.  He observed and said the things that I  wished I could say with a voice and power I wished I possessed.  I can pick up one of his books and open to a page anywhere in the book and read and be fascinated without knowing the context of what I’m reading, just from the sheer strength of his writing’s voice.

I see a lot of things in this particular essay that translate as well for painting or any other form of creation.  It opens:

Writing, like life itself, is a voyage of discovery. The adventure is a metaphysical one: it is a way of approaching life indirectly, of acquiring a total rather than a partial view of the universe. The writer lives between the upper and lower worlds: he takes the path in order to eventually become that path himself.

Substituting artist for writer, I was immediately pulled in.  The path he refers to is the path I often refer to in my paintings, the path we all walk and struggle along on, trying to find the middle way between these upper and lower worlds.  

It’s a good essay and one I recommend for anyone who creates in any form and struggles with the meaning of their work beyond its surface.  For anyone seeking that path…

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Name This Painting!Contest Reminder!

I’m asking for your help in naming this painting and am offering a prize (it’s better than you think though it doesn’t involve air travel or posh resorts) for the title that I deem fitting for the piece.

So put on your thinking caps and let me know your title for this painting.  Even if it’s not chosen as the final name, your title will be included on the painting’s reverse side for all of eternity.  Well, for an extended period of time.  I’m just not so sure about eternity.

So, submit your title by simply commenting or email me at  info@gcmyers.com

I look forward to your titles.

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