Aversion To Light
On moving towards an improved creative stance.
A few weeks ago Justin Murphy1 posted a snippet2 of an interview with the literary critic and literature professor Harold Bloom. With fervor and a lack of apology often missing from cultural criticism today, Bloom exhorted his listeners to consume -- and to solely consume -- what he considered good media. He regarded taking charge of the formation of one's mental landscape through the careful consumption of media to be one's highest intellectual duty, and the curation of this media diet by one's educators and one's self to be of the highest importance. This exhortation, while seemingly focused on university students at some points, extends to all. It is seen as essential to the formation of not merely a shared common sense (of which a maladjusted form is easy enough to bring about), but also a truth-seeking community with a refined aesthetic sense, able to assemble itself to explore and realize visions of improved human thriving.
The points made in this interview hung on the wall of my mind like an activated siren, and later, in a moment of reflective clarity, they helped me realize the character of one of my most anti-creative impulses: a slight aversion to media I sense are good for me, my intellect, and my spirit.
Though to be clear, I see this aversion as relatively slight. But it is there. It is there and if I were to be honest with myself I would recognize that its aggregate impact over time has been nontrivial. I will gladly slog through difficult texts and pore over sinewy passages with a partner -- this genre of task I have little issue with. But it is those texts whose reputations and physical manifestations give an aura of "I will demand a deep change within you once you Know me" that I have found myself most averse to.
But why? Is it a fear that an improved knowledge of my duties to self, intellect, and community will result in increased obligation, and in turn expose me to increased punishment should I miss the mark? Yes, I think this is the core of it. Here, my spirit echoes the reluctant prophet Jonas, who found himself in spiritual turmoil and a literal tempest as he avoided his heavenly mandate to prophesy to the city of Nineveh. I know what is good and I avoid it for no good reason. The only way to end this storm of the heart and of the circumstance is to turn towards the light and launch myself headlong into it.
While identifying an issue does not mean one has solved it3, I hope this exploration has helped me define the contours of this tumor so that I can continue the process of excising it completely. My life goals require me to magnify and orchestrate every virtue I have, and I must lean into my good sense and follow its dictates if I am going to have any chance of success. My good instinct cannot be ignored. In sharing this hope that readers are better equipped to listen to their own good instincts.
Just because you see it, does not mean it is gone, by The Last Psychiatrist