The dog's muse

You know what the difference between a painter or sculptor or whatever and a writer? Notice that I didn't just call the former "artist", because I consider writing to be an art. The difference is that where allegory comes naturally to the canvas, and metaphor to the sculpture, there is no such thing for a writer. Sure, you can write in tongues, but if no one gets it then what was the point? And if people do get it, then whatever it was you wanted to express without those thoughts being brought into the open is also lost. For example, if a painter is in a mood he'll paint a stormy sky, the ominous clouds interspersed with bolts of lightning and lashes of rains flying down to wreak a most terrible watery vengeance on the earth. And people will look at that painting and say, "Oh, that's nice. He must have been in a bad mood that day."
If a writer tries to express his emotions, he is hampered by those very emotions. He doesn't necessarily want to reveal what it is that upsets him, but without this catalyst how can he accurately portray his mood? His very ability to portray without revelation is rendered impossible.

Meanwhile, in other news, I'm back in Yeshiva in Morristown. Just kidding. No, (yes?) I'm in Morristown shteiging away like nobody's business (the Uncle Sam express), but I won't leave you hanging with the first paragraph. You want to know what prompted them. Well, I was sitting in zal tonight catching up on some Shm"ot and waiting for my chavrusa when the muse hit me. It was of course composed of all my previous experieces in life, as all muses must be, but it reflected most strongly my feelings of the last few days. Such a tempest, a fervor of emotion, enough to make one wish for the dry intellect of Athens or the cold calculation of Munich. And yet there can be much gain in emotion, much benefit to the swirling thoughts flying hither and thither, whirling 'round their intended target and attempting to make themselves foremost in the mind. At these times the admonition of Tanya is most useful, the knowledge that the mind controls the heart, and not the other way around.
It would also be useful to bring up the famous story of Aristotle, once we mention Athens, and his students finding him engaged in highly illegal activities with a horse. They questioned him regarding his behaviour, specifically because he had only earlier that day warned them against it himself. His reply? "This is not Aristotle", meaning that their was an intellectual soul, an Aristotle, and there was an animal soul, which wasn't Aristotle. And never the twain shall meet. Judaism teaches that this is the wrong way to look at things. We are humans, yes, complete with human characteristics and desires, but we also have something higher. All people have an intellect, a brain, an organ that can raise a person from his purely animal past and place him in a world that is governed by reason, not by passion. Jews have it even better, because we have a G-dly soul, quite literally a part of the living G-d. And this soul allows us to rise above the intellectual to allow G-d to penetrate our conscious and replace all that is finite with the infinite. Aristotle didn't accept that he could master himself. He refused to believe that the animal is man is not only shameful for the brain but also for the animal. For that is the difference between hiskafia and ishapcha. The former teaches us to repel all that is evil, but this is not enough. The latter teaches us to change that darkness into light. To make the animal soul itself recognize that there is no greater thing in the world than G-d. Allowing the animal free reign in its domain while the brain rules in its, as Aristotle wanted, is not a proper course of action. We were not brought into this world to satisfy our appetites, but rather to fulfill G-d's will.

And how as a writer am I doing this? Well, hopefully if you made it this far throught the quagmire that is my moralizing, you'll allow it to have the slightest of effects on you.