Quote of the Day: TS Eliot for Real

"Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things." I thought of this quote last night while I was working on a short story. I think it's my favorite TS Eliot quote which is saying a lot because he said plenty of interesting things in his day.

I was working on my short story last night when I had a flash of realization that I had been writing about a own personal issue without even knowing it. I had originally conceived my short story as fun little test that would allow me to practice creating a protagonist that was nothing like me and I even stole someone's humorous anecdote for my plot idea. I think it's actually going pretty well right now. I've actually wrote a few paragraphs that I am pretty proud of. I was re-reading a part of the story last night that worked particularly well, when all of the sudden I realized that it was really about myself and my own emotions. I realized the same thing about my novel once upon a time too. Maybe that's why I am so tired of it now because I can get pretty boring sometimes.

I know that if I had set out to try write a story exploring my own emotional state it would have ended up being pretty lame. People whining about themselves is really not that interesting. When people vent they don't really worry about the sentence structure and imagery of their rants. When someone is constructing a piece of art they are mainly concerned with the ascetic effects on the future audience and it shows in the artistic quality of the piece. That's why I never read memoirs but will happily read fictionalized accounts of true events all the time.

I guess in the end nobody can really escape themselves even if that's what you are trying to do through your art. So does that mean I believe in the unconscious? I don't know, maybe.