"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

[otakulk.livejournal.com]

I have to disagree with you about joy. I think that joy can be expresessed in words, or in lyrics, or in poems. I think it just so happens that people most commonly write about pain because it helps them deal with it. When people are happy, the don't think abouyt it, they don't question it, the don't want to write about it, they want to experience it.

Also, if you think about it, its only around the last twenty years that music has really shifted towards anger and pain. Everyone is in love with the idea of being unhappy. Everyone wants an excuse to be sad or angry. They believe that if they are angry, they can be excused from responsibility. They can act irrationally. Other love the sadness because it makes them feel special. It gives them a reason to be different from everyone else, not realizing their conformity to everyone else.

Think about it, music just a few decades ago was about the feeling it conveyed. Ocasionally it was a sad feeling, but there was always music that made people feel good. There was music for every emotion, love, happiness, confusion, contemplation, etc. Just think about how pop music has changed over the years. Its kinda depressing that so many people are in love with pain.

"Makes me wonder...."

And she's buying a stairway to Heaven...

[jackofallgeeks.livejournal.com]

I would have to disagree, primarily due to personal experience. That is, I have been happy, and I have tried expressing it in words - both orally and literately. However, in neither case has my point gotten across. In the best cases, it just slowly caves in on itself - the reader can see that I'm happy, but can't FEEL it. In the worst cases it's a jumble of words that hardly make coherent sentences at all. I might have gotten close (http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=roliasnoom&itemid=124530) once, but that was more a sense of achievement and victory than Joy or happiness. All this having been said, I would argue that it's not a matter of people not WANTING to write about it, because I have wanted to and failed. Perhapse that's a fault in me...

As for your other point, I might agree that people today are in love with pain - I may be rightly accused of that myself (oddly enough) though I haven't quite decided yet. At the same time, though, I would argue that it's not a recent phenomenon. You refer to music, in which case I can see that emo and punk and grunge and all of that easily slides into your stereotype that today's music is all about pain and anger. Bubblegum Pop doesn't, and it does still exist. Neither does at least a piece of Country - sure country dips into the Depression Pool but I could just as easily point you toward happier tunes. additionally, Pain-songs are not limited to this decade. You include the 80s in your Time Gap, and so that covers Depeche Mode and Duran Duran. But what about 70s Rock, particularly Savatage, Guns and Roses, and quite a number of Queen and Styx - not to mention the others which i've only had a taste of, including Pink Floyd and Led Zeplin. I don't figure they fit into your block, do they? Going further back than that I might point to Elvis, who sings quite often of pain, and before that Black Folk music, which was all KNOW is full of pain. Touche.

Additionally, you did not touch on the topic at hand with your discussion of music trends, that being that you can't WRITE about Joy. As I said, give me any book and I will show you that when the characters are happy, the book is over - if then. Nor is this tend recent in books, either - or since you seemed to pick out my poets and lyricists comment, poetry, either. I could easily point you to the great Tragedies of Literature, or the great majority of the 19th Century Romantic Era. You can find pain-writing clearly and abundantly all the way back to the time of the Odyssey and the Aeneid.

This all having been said, I stand by my position that Joy is too real to be accurately conveyed in language.