What in the Klingon Empire would've made them cry
Over something so paltry and small?
What could've depressed them,
What could've possessed them?
I cannot understand the wretches at all.
Humans are irrational, that's all there is to that!
Their heads are full of feelings and dramatics!
They're nothing but emoting, simpering,
grieving, sighing, whimpering,
sorrowing, maddening fanatics!
Socrates, why can't humans be more like Spock?
Socrates: I beg your pardon?
Me: Yes...
Why can't humans be more like Spock?
Spock is so careful, so neurological,
Eternally right, elementally logical,
Who, when you fight, will always show you what's true.
Why can't humans be more like Spock?
Why does every one do what the others do?
Can't the humans learn to use their heads?
Why do they do everything their parents do?
Why don't they grow up—well, like computers instead?
Why can't the humans take after Spock?
Spock is so reasonable, so predictable,
Whenever you're with him, you needn't fear.
Would he be slighted if I didn't speak for hours?
Socrates: Of course not!
Me: Would he be livid if I looked at him wrong?
Socrates: Nonsense.
Me: Would he be wounded if I never sent him flowers?
Socrates: Never!
Me: Well, why can't humans be more like Spock?
--
Dear readers, you must excuse me for that rather long and perhaps not so very clever parody (I hope you recognize its source), but it was so terribly much fun. Also, it provides an apt introduction to my current topic: the matter of emotions.
Perhaps it is an entirely too personal topic at present, but I think I shall dare once more to do what the aforementioned (as in the last post) writer-friend of mine describes so perfectly. I shall take all of the rawness, all of that vulnerable humanity, place it out where anyone may look at it should he so choose, and thereby hide myself. In his words (and follow the link if you want to read more) about the use of words:
It is amazing to me how cleverly one can reveal one's deepest feelings and fears and yet remain perfectly concealed. Often I find that all I need to do is substitute a plural first person pronoun instead of the singular and a deep, personal thought becomes a common statement of reality taken for granted. It seems trite, unoriginal, and therefore scarcely worth a second glance. What I can't say of myself, I can say of the whole of humanity. I gain release of the built-up fears and emotions hidden behind the layers of walls and yet I remain behind the mask.
"...I am so frightened of being seen behind them, that I arrange them in ways that hide me too. In anything you see me write, you see me — whole and unbroken. But I am scared, so I’ve hidden myself among precisely painted lines spread out over huge canvases. I’m hoping it’ll make me a little less vulnerable."
Emotions are such a strange thing. Ultimately they seem to be the very warp of the fabric of vulnerability. Hide your emotions and you hide your vulnerability. Hide your vulnerability and you cannot be hurt.
Years of small disappointments and seeming carelessness on the part of others led me to build up such walls—walls that formed a defense of mistrust so sure that none could penetrate them with battering rams or kind words. Something happened to change that. It started with one persistent enough to gain trust. Others came afterward and various characters and events and theatre and the walls began to crumble....
Vulnerability is lovable said my dear professor of theatre. I didn't believe him quite. At least I didn't believe him that my vulnerability was lovable; I hated it. The vulnerability of others certainly made them lovable, as it revealed them as humans in need of love and support and not bastions of inimitable skill and unsurpassable rightness. Maybe my vulnerability would make me lovable to others, but not to me. And somehow we perfectionist types care less about what others think than about what we ourselves believe.
Sometimes I allow myself to be vulnerable these days. Sometimes I even love myself for it.
Yet then there are the times when a piercing dart wounds that soft inner core. It threatens to undo all the practice of allowing vulnerability. I question: why does love have to hurt?
A wounded animal retreats from the world and hides itself until it has healed lest it should become prey to some hungry predator. The instinctive response to hide oneself behind walls after being hurt thus has a perfectly natural origin.
I have heard often through my life that pain can lead to hardness of heart or to compassion. The instinctive response—the natural one—is to steel oneself against all further attacks and build up wall upon wall to save the heart—that vulnerable (able to be wounded, as directly translated from the Latin) part—from future pain. If this is natural and nature is good, then why should one choose differently?
We seem to admire that which is not natural. (Take skyscrapers and movies for instance.) Yet perhaps I may be so bold as even to say that we admire what is supernatural.
It is natural to build up walls, but supernatural to remain soft. It is natural to save ourselves from pain and supernatural to choose to be hurt out of love. It is natural for me to run from emotions and relationships that cause me heartache, but supernatural to remain at peace therein, trusting that good will come from constant effort to love.
I suppose the only conclusion that I can draw from the above ramblings on emotion and our human response thereto is this one: Spock is less than human.
The logic: if supernatural means above nature (as it does; see the Latin) and Spock can never choose to be vulnerable (it not being in his nature to have emotions in the first place), then he can never choose the supernatural path. Since humans can choose to act supernaturally, they therefore are superior to Spock.
That is the head's response to the heart's question. Yet which is ultimately more satisfying?
When it comes to art, I have absolutely no doubts about the answer. I want to find in literature, in drama, in music, in all the arts, the pain, the heartache, and the loneliness that I would never bear in daily life. Great art requires it.
However, when I must put my raw self into my art, I hesitate. Somehow I carefully conceal myself while pouring out what I believe are my deepest feelings, but which fail to touch the deepest core I have hidden. Maybe I have hidden it even from myself. Maybe I must learn to live with that vulnerability—as both my director reading and spiritual reading these days suggest—before I can bring it forth in my art.
Alternatively, I could choose the path of logic and reason. In short, I could try to be like Spock.
Could Spock ever be a great artist?
2 comments:
Good words.
Thank you.
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