"Life Is Pain, Highness. Anyone Who Says Different Is Selling Something."

[jackofallgeeks]

I like to write, and when I write, it's about pain. Physical pain, emotional pain, mental pain - even the pain of being completly numb. Those who know me in passing might find this odd, while those who know me better might find it ironically fitting. Writing is perhapse the channel for dark emotion which can't find expression through the rest of my personality. In a sense, perhapse writing makes me whole.

It occurs to me, however, that I am not alone in this phenomenon of pain-writing. Poets and lyricists come readily to mind, their art being marked by strong emotion. But even beyond that, no story is of any worth without some conflict, some pain. When the characters are happy, the story is over.

I think, then, that the phenomenon occurs because pain seems more real when you put it in words. Joy feels fake when you try to write about it; two-dimentional, hollow. Pain can be felt in words, it strikes a chord and resonates within us.

Pain can be falsified.
Joy can not; if you try, it falls apart. Joy is too real to be transferred in words - it must be experienced. Words fail to capture the essence of joy because it is so powerful, so far beyond what can be expressed in such a limited medium. pain is simple enough to be recognized. Joy has to be real.

Comments

[giantewok.livejournal.com]

pain is something that strikes a chord is everybody. every angsty little goth, every stuck up punk, every emo kid... most all of them have experianced pain. the things that rank up there with pain are unrequited love and parents. i'll agree with you on the joy thing.. but pain like joy can't really be falsified.. not in reality. because you have to write about something you have had experiance with, or else it is stupid. imagine some unisex trying to write about being kicked in the nuts. it would never have happened to it, so it could only give an ultimately hollow speel onhow it 'seemed' to feel and how it looked like it "hurt". so any pain you supposedly "falsify" is in reality pain you have suffered in the past that has just been dredged up and given a new paint job; its still real, and its still yours.

The first is never start a land war in Asia...

[jackofallgeeks.livejournal.com]

"every angsty little goth, every stuck up punk, every emo kid"
Aren't those all the same thing? :p

It's an interesting idea but something doesn't quite sit right...
You see, I don't think you necessarily have to write about something you've experienced, more so something you know, which are two completely different things.

At the same time, though, I would like to say there have been at least a number of times where I have been really, truly happy, if only for a moment, and I've found I can't really write about it if I tried. My argument wasn't so much that pain IS fake, or that it is easily faked, but the fack remains that pain CAN BE faked and transferred through words. Joy can not, and as such, Joy is more complete, more whole, more real than Pain is.