Art & Intimacy with the Absurd
For weeks I’ve had “Breakthespell” by Mk.gee on repeat, attempting to pinpoint, beyond musical beauty, how and why its magic binds me. Years since my last viewing, I randomly decided to rewatch one of my favorite films, Moonlight, the other day. Reading Mating by Norman Rush, I’ve found myself gazing uneasily into a mirror. After a year of debating when to start investing more in my writing, I choose to commit to it recently. A suspicious set of coincidences, one with a thread stretching back further than my current season of uncertainty.
In my youth, I didn’t have the safety necessary to develop a healthy relationship with my emotions. I’ve relied on perfectionism and hyper-vigilance of myself and others to protect myself. All the mistakes I should’ve made and lessons I should’ve learned as a child, I’m now making and learning as an adult with a significantly less malleable brain. Lately, the work of understanding myself and unlearning these protective mechanisms has felt more exhausting than usual.
I’m finding solace in thoughts of what it would feel like to not be here anymore, aching for everything to stop moving, to disappear for just a little while. I often find myself here when the absurdity of life is most intimate. The liminality of a tearful trip on public transit after a disappointing attempt to make new friends revealed why art has felt especially crucial in recent months.
The popular theory that art catalyzes escape is incomplete. Art does not remove us from or dismiss the absurd. It accompanies us amidst it and makes creating life in a world beyond explanation less paralyzing. It fuels our imagination and creation of communal meaning, even if absurdity argues its absence. The more I push myself to engage with the ugly and absurd in myself and the world, the more I crave artistic encounters.
I listen to “Breakthespell” and the softly melded layers and hazy vocals numb my brain as it slips into a dreamlike state. As if waving a wand, the first measure pulls me into a slightly irregular rhythm that greets my big feelings gently, the warmth and fullness of the bass and the humming synth cradle any unease. His lyrics, although thematically distant from my current experience, reveal a tension of his own—I am not alone.
Like Chiron learning to swim in Moonlight, I’m unlearning emotional naivety. When confronting the shame and disappointment of inexperience, I often lie down and imagine I’m floating in the ocean waves held by safe hands and a voice saying, “relax. I got you. I promise you. I’m not gonna let you go”. I’m reminded it’s okay to not know and to learn and accept help from others.
When I’m terrified of the unknown and my mental compulsions consume me, I recall the unnamed narrator in Mating measuring every inch of her partner’s sleeping body, cataloguing everything she knows about him. Upon reviewing her “masterpiece” she laments, “I wish I had never done it” and I release my shared lust for certainty.
When I’m trapped in my head or don’t know what to do with the icky depths of myself, I write. I can safely encounter my unmasked self and the chaos in my brain receives structure. Writing is where I communicate most confidently. When insecurities about my verbal communication creep in, my writing reminds me to release the need for perfection and embrace the fear of being misunderstood. Perhaps I hope my creations will meet others in their most unexplainable spaces and put words to their own absurdity.
When I struggle to hold this absurdity and entertain the futility of finding meaning, I turn to poetry. Rumi converses with us:
Whatever the ways of the world,/what fruits do you bring?
Say famine strikes—//where is your hand?/Where is your measuring cup/and storehouse of grain?
Say scorpions, thorns, and snakes overrun the world./Even so,/you’re brimming with joy.//Where is your garden? Take us to the flowers.
Sun and moon go down in hell’s flames.//What light will you shine,/what fire will you light/before we can’t see, before we can’t hear.
Come. Let’s put this all aside./We’re drunk on a lofty ale and it’s getting late.//Where, my friend, is your tavern? Take us there.
With art, navigating an inscrutable existence feels manageable. Art is truly the best philosopher: whatever the [absurdity] of the world, our meaning lies in inviting each other into our gardens, our taverns, our joy, our lack, our light, our suffering, and building a world that, like art, meets us in our times of deepest need.
