c.1981, photo by Mark Hanauer
Pain doesn’t make anything, nor does poverty. The artist is there first. What becomes of him depends upon his luck. If his luck is good (worldly-speaking) he becomes a bad artist. If his luck is bad, he becomes a good one.
~ Charles Bukowski
When I hear people talk about writing and literature, I get the sense everyone fell in love with the craft at early ages. I imagine noses buried deep within the valleys of Narnia, or strolling the gardens of London with Jane Austen as their guide. I imagine a lifetime of beautiful memories, building up—saving up—to amass a literary feast, from which they’d turn to in times of joyful solitude, sorrow or just plain boredom.
Literature was this behemoth institution, that legions of humanity would turn to as their trusted companions until the end of time.
This is not something one just “decides” to be a part of one day. No, literature—writing—is a sacred craft. A gift.
Or is it?
I read as a child, and I did my homework in high school, but I have no memories of sequestering myself to a cozy corner all afternoon to read The Lord of the Rings. I was a late bloomer. I didn’t read Tolkien until I was in my early twenties. Then, Nabokov, then Orwell, then Dostoyevsky….you get the idea.
Maybe my late-onset love of literature explains why I’m so intimidated by it.
That intimidation constantly holds me back. It tells me I’ll never be able to write like Charles Bukowski—who’s one of my favorite authors—and any attempt to do so, would be pointless. Yet, it’s Bukowski himself, or rather, his words, that refuse to let me quit.
I follow Bukowski Quotes on Twitter (@bukquotes) who tweets a quote from Buk every day. Sometimes I catch it, and other days not, but when I do, I feel this need to write. To keep trying.
To say fuck it, and do it anyway. My way.
Bukowski wasn’t perfect, and he certainly wasn’t shy in admitting it. In fact, it’s that intimacy that inspires me most. This whiskey-infused, dirty old man, could describe the ecstasy and torment of love, the clever grace of a cat or the dark corners of a lonely soul, in a way that makes my skin tingle, heart race and tears streak down my cheeks.
I’m intimidated because I respect the art. Most of my life I’ve held writers on such a high pedestal, I’d forgotten what drew me to them in the first place: their humanity, their vulnerability, and their flaws. All of it. The very traits I cited as reasons preventing me from aspiring to such heights, were those drew me to them in the first place.
Literature isn’t an institution. It’s not a club of whom only the literati are invited to join.
It’s something to which anyone can reveal the artist within.
People like Bukowski, and me.
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