idiologue

In a conversation the other day, we spoke of writing and the difficulties of fear and shame. We bemoaned our silence and our apprehension, loathe to expose ourselves, worrying over the thoughts of others, potential and otherwise. We admitted our weakness even as we understood the manner of its release, the solution ever present, yet rarely grasped. It occurred to me then how the writer is somewhat like the stripper, that teaser of desires, that shedder of the final fig leaf.

She dances in rhythmic motions, spinning around our desires, shedding layers of cloth slowly, displaying more and more skin, arousing us and enticing us with taut limb and arched back, drawing out our hunger with fervour and sweat, shimmering before us as she pulls us to the limits of anticipation until finally, she stands glorious and shameless in all her nakedness.

So does the writer. In his own version of the dance, he casts off words instead of cloth, a swirling rhythm of meaning and metaphor, capturing our attention with wit and well turned phrase, seizing on our hopes and playing to our desires, peeling away layer after layer of the self while raising us to the same heights of ecstasy until finally, he too stands naked before us, his head held high, his soul exposed.

Or at least, that's how it should be, yet it is rarely so. Many of us, hopeful and desiring of expression are too timid, too protective of our fragile egos to so readily abandon our garments and our inhibitions. We feel unworthy and ashamed of our naked selves, embarrassed at the thought of exposure. Yet it is this very exposure that is our goal. When we seek to express, we seek to impart, to share something of life as we experience it. But, in order to do so, we must give of ourselves, for we give nothing if we give not of ourselves. And in giving of ourselves, we expose ourselves, we put forth and display our vulnerabilities, our weaknesses, and our humanity. This is the very essence of expression, to give voice to that which is within us, and to hide that which is within us, is to silence that voice, to silence that expression.

The greatest sin an artist can commit is to remain silent. Not the silence of fullness and peace, but the empty silence of fear and shame. The painter who leaves the canvas white, the musician whose instrument gathers dust, and the writer whose ink dries in the well, these are abominations to the spirit of expression. It is the duty of the artist to sing and to scream, to plead and demand, to praise and condemn, but above all, to reveal. To reveal the truth and express it without fear and without shame, for the truth stands glorious in its own light, where fear and shame cannot touch it. The truth, as all know, is forever inviolate. And when we expose ourselves, bare in flesh and soul, what is it we expose but the truth within us, our truth.