Scene from a story

Whatever drove Harold Westerberg to lose his reason will remain a mystery, but the effects of his actions rocked his own little world. Harry (as he was known) had been discovered on the open highway on a Wednesday night slumped against his car, higher than a kite, and still puffing at the spent ends of cannabis joints when the highway patrolman reached him. His pristinely kept Saab an absolute wreck, all scratched and dented down one side, and strewn with an assortment of bottles, empty syringes, and some suspicious shiny packets. One might have expected a lout, no less, in the midst of these items with matted shirt and twisted tangled hair, cooing a soft melody from Dylan or Blunt. Yet here was a man dressed tip to toe on point, as though he were a functionary at a splendid gala or ball. More baffling was that his appearance seemed scarcely touched by the noxious chemicals about and within him. The shirt was still unsmudged, the tie in place, and his jacket lay open at the breast. Evidently this nasty bout had failed to produce in him the image of dissolution. 

When he was found, groggy and delirious against the passenger door, his curling hair brushing against the handle, and his lips spluttering some indistinguishable sound, Harry was cold and pale. The patrolman shook his slightly by the shoulder, now speaking in a slow, tidy voice, and held a finger before those beady eyes set closely in a corpulent round face, which were struggling to cross and lock upon it. The officer sighed and muttered briefly into his radio. Then turning again to the gibbering man, he reached into his breast pocket, drawing out a slim wallet carrying all the details of his immediate identity. A few minutes of flipping and fumbling under the unsteady beam of a penlight produced what he needed. Now he replaced the wallet and helped Harry to his feet, lifting him beneath the arms and guiding him back toward to own flashing vehicle. Settling Mr. Westerberg in the rear passenger seat, Officer Brady returned to secure the exhausted motor vehicle. Then, climbing into his cruiser he gently moved off--with Harry still mumbling--his headlights searing a trail through the thickening dusk. 

The purpose of living is surely to stand for something: to march under the banner of a lofty ideal, though one should stumble and watch his standard fall; to carry forth a mighty legacy, yet suffering the whips and scorns that it endures through the tunnels of time; to juggle the keen and pointy instruments of satire while remaining free of injury, to summon up a universe of thought for each to be a traveller within. These are noble projects all, but I catch upon the last which now stands but luringly in my reach...

The long pursuit of art is a ceaseless hammering with "blut und eisen"--for what could cover its dimensions but a Bismarckian term--which when done right, bears out our thoughts to the edge of doom, to earth's long sleep, to Nature's final rest. For how live we but through the memories of other men, of whom we know nothing? Mr. Palahniuk sets out this great truth in spartan style, "We all die. The goal is not to live forever, the goal is to create something that will." I am challenged today to refine the concept of my art, as a process which involves defining the true nature of myself, the artist. 

A great artist is one that is not ever conscious of his art, because it is an organic part of him, an extension of his being. he does not really perform or create in a deliberate manner, but allows the spectator to enter and discover his world. The audience sees his life as it truly is, because he lives it and has become so invested and involved in it that his natural place belongs there, even beyond the wide world where biology governs his mortal existence. There should be nothing exaggerated or phony as the artist goes about in the world of his creation, creating and uncreating what is past and here and yet to come. 

So what is it in a man, or woman, that attests to genius and wears excellence as its native emblem then? Where is found the organic brilliance which puts successive ages to shame? That is a question I hope to answer in my next post. 

Welcome all. I begin here in an earnest attempt to set my thoughts in shape upon this blankness; what literary endowments I may possess is left to your judgement in the ensuing lines. I wish comfort and peace upon you, dear reader, in the hope that my words shall produce stirrings of your own. Let us strengthen and support one another to catch our breaths in the written moment, and bravely set words to life. Now then, to arms! and hands and fingers lie our task, our proper hidden feelings to unmask--