DABBLER SCRIBBLES

                            The sheer idea of criticism runs a chill across the spine. There are few who keep an open door to criticism. Ofcourse the bitter taste of the words demeaning your work are not a treat of gluttony and you are destined to run on to the sick bed of melancholy after the stings of criticism have stung you hard. Who likes to be hit by a hammer in the face after a laborious and exhausting attempt at creating something, specifically in the field of art? Where on one side it comes as real obvious to repel the comments of the critics, on the other side there is a hidden medicine in the bitter words of criticism that we tend to ignore and label people as haters. Considering Art of any form which can range unfathomably from painting to writing to dancing to singing to origami to anything and everything, I am bound to lease out the conspicuous importance of criticism in the making of a legend or a maestro.

           Basically, in personal opinion, I strongly believe that an artist has three phases of development at large. The first phase is, of course, the “phase of discovery”, where the future artist has just discovered his art and found a newborn passion. At this stage, he is similar to a diamond hidden inside a coal. Pure pitch dark coal seeming ugly and unromantic to the eyes of the talented. If the cruel swords-of-criticism be brought out here and lashed upon brutally onto this coal, it is going to roll back into the mine and stay there obscure, undiscovered and denied of the little chance of harvesting confidence. This is the phase where the critic or the person the artist looks up to for a review, must be Hippocratic. He must blanket his errors and try to instill confidence by motivation. Allow the artist to believe that there can be a diamond inside him. It is highly possible that there would be no diamond at all and it becomes analogous to “Schrodinger’s Cat scenario of What if I critique too harsh and the artist in him dies and what if I allow him to jump off the cliff of creativity but not tell him that he does not have the wings”. Here we must employ “Selective criticism” and be as lenient as possible. We, along with him, must take a leap of faith. Initial praise will keep him moving.

        When the coal slowly moves to the second stage where a bit of the diamond’s skin shows off, the critic can employ enough harsh criticism to burst few of his bubbles. As an artist, one is bound to believe that every piece he creates is a masterpiece and endorses strong emotions and pride with each one of them. In the second stage, when the crude crystal is showing off, bring the artist out of the “fairyland of all things great” and acquaint him with the reality and talent around. Give him a reality check and show his standards with regard to the work available in the field. But there is fine point one must remember. Although the artist has invested enough confidence in his work, he still does not have an invincible faith in his work and he still can roll back into the mine. So the critic must ensure that on one side where he acquaints him with the reality, on the other side he must keep him motivated and tell him what it took for the maestros to get where they got. This is the second phase.

     When all you have is a crystal in the crude form and no piece of coal is canopying the crude diamond, bring out your “Samurai swords of criticism” and shape him and polish him to the best. Then and only then can a Pretending-Artist become an “Artist” in the true sense. The need of criticism in bringing the best of anybody is undeniably quintessential but the phases of criticism must work parallel to the phases of the artist’s development. Where hypocrisy can be employed in the initial stages, it is important that one holds on to giving brutally honest review later on. Honest criticism will lay the foundation of excellence and it is something that an artist stays indebted for life.

        

                 "To be or not to be, that is the question!" And this question is fairly old. It has haunted civilizations, let alone people in specific. The excellence of this question is in the simplicity and innocence of its terms. Whether to be or not to be, like a little child wondering whether to give the broken toy to a friend or not to give but here it is only extended to the sphere of life and death. Although this soliloquy of Shakespeare firmly deals with the issue of existence, it can, in modern times be extended to common issues of coming of the age that is Identity crises as well. The phrase Identity Crisis is in vogue. It sounds like a first world country problem while the third world countries have to still deal with issues of poverty, hunger, unemployment, ill health, illiteracy, social and political imbalance and the likes. But if you stop looking at the forest in general and care to scoot into it, you will surely find one tree which would stand for the issue of “Identity crisis” and breathing the words, “to be or not to be, that is the question” which the master of Romeo Juliet and King Lear has so brilliantly asked in Hamlet. As such it is a herculean task to deal with the “Forest” in general but if I may, I would like to shift your attention to that tree which stand for the issues of Hamlet; Personality Crisis and the freedom to be self, in the context of this discussion. Well it cannot be denied that we are all a part of a society and unless we desire to have salvation in solitude and live the life of Henry David Thoreau, we cannot absolutely amplitude ourselves from the decorum of the civilization. Our actions and thoughts will generate ripples in the little pond we live, so it won’t be wrong for the fellow humans to ask you to tailor your ripples to the norms of the pond so that your wavelength does not morally or psychologically damp somebody else’s wavelength. Often you will be asked to wear the skin of the herd. As liberal and as utopian the Roman civilization was, even it had practiced the course of “selective adaptation” where the lesser minds were killed so that the future generation will not be adulterated with less intelligence. Now the lesser minds would have asked the same question, “To be or not to be”, had Shakespeare been born before their time. So fitting people in has been the base of civilization since the beginning and it is morally right too. But when you ask few “subversives” to do so, there comes a little whisper from the corners of their minds asking, “What about individuality? What about the personality I hold? Who am I, if I separate from this herd?” in the process of fitting in are we chopping off the wings we have, or getting rid of the flamboyant hump or even trying to break the fins and walk the Sahara dunes just because the herd I think I belong to has such norms and hooves. Where it is moral for an individual to fit in, is it not a moral obligation of the society to understand his uniqueness and accept him as he is? Where else can we be ourselves? In solitude? Where can we tell our herd that we can fly, or go days long without water or even swim oceans? This world is accelerating towards poker status quo  and with such obligations of “fit in”, we are only encouraging more fakeness and killing originality and individuality and this will push each of us to the very question that has echoed timelessly in the valleys of civilization; “To be or not to be, that is the question.”