Art, Of Course, Is A Way Of

It Would Be, For Me, Mere Pointless Pleasure, An Illusion Of Order For This One Frail, Foolish, Flicker-flash In The Long Dull Fall Of Eternity.

I Couldn't Go On, Too Conscious All At Once Of My Whispering, My Eternal Posturing, Always Transforming The World With Words--changing Nothing.

I Understand That The World Was Nothing: A Mechanical Chaos Of Casual, Brute Enmity On Which We Stupidly Impose Our Hopes And Fears. I Understood That, Finally And Absolutely, I Alone Exist. All The Rest, I Saw, Is Merely What Pushes Me, Or What I Push Against, Blindly - As Blindly As All That Is Not Myself Pushes Back. I Create The Whole Universe, Blink By Blink.

People Will Tell You That Writing Is Too Difficult, That It's Impossible To Get Your Work Published, That You Might As Well Hang Yourself. Meanwhile, They'll Keep Writing And You'll Have Hanged Yourself.

In University Courses We Do Exercises. Term Papers, Quizzes, Final Examinations Are Not Meant For Publication. We Move Through A Course On Dostoevsky Or Poe As We Move Through A Mildly Good Cocktail Party, Picking Up The Good Bits Of Food Or Conversation, Bearing With The Rest, Going Home When It Comes To Seem The Reasonable Thing To Do. Art, At Those Moments When It Feels Most Like Art -- When We Feel Most Alive, Most Alert, Most Triumphant -- Is Less Like A Cocktail Party Than A Tank Full Of Sharks.