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Love, Culture and Poetry
Life beats down and crushes the soul, and art reminds you that you have one.
― Stella Adler (1901–1992)
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I had jumped off the edge of the cliff and just as I was about to hit rock bottom, an extraordinary thing happened: I found out that there were people who loved me. Being loved like that changes everything. It doesn’t lessen the fear of the fall, but it gives you a whole new perspective on what that fear means. I had jumped from the edge and then at the last moment something caught me. That something is what I define as love. It’s the only thing that can stop a man’s fall, the only thing powerful enough to invalidate the laws of gravity.
— SNIPPET OF THE MOON PALACE BY PAUL AUSTER.
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Socrates said, “The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.” He wasn’t talking about grammar. To misuse language is to use it the way politicians and advertisers do, for profit, without taking responsibility for what the words mean. Language used as a means to get power or make money goes wrong: it lies. Language used as an end in itself, to sing a poem or tell a story, goes right, goes towards the truth. A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with…
