My Dad (the architect) wrote me (the art/architecture student) an email this week—here is a small bit of what he said:
“I noticed something this week while working
on a challenging project, and it is this…
whenever fear is present, my abilities are
limited. It is almost as though I need to get to a
point of "I don't give a..." in order to truly allow
myself to produce. Now people have different
ways of arriving at that point, but I believe we all
thrive in an environment that is focused and
fearless. Sometimes to get to that point we just
have to start, and then allow your effort and
gaining of knowledge about the situation to
dissipate the fear..” –Good ol’ Daddy
A few ideas I found when connecting this to Aristotle’s writings were this:
On page 1: Aristotle writes about imitation being implanted from childhood and says, ‘no less universal is the pleasure felt in things imitated.’ The way that I interpreted this to connect with my excerpt was that I found what my Dad was saying as reflective of my life. I could relate completely to the fact that when I get flustered and fearful of what people will think about my art and whether it will turn out as I envisioned it-- my creativity begins to all go down hill—but, when I relax, things fall into place. Therefore there is a pleasure in seeing imitation between humankind—one individual relating to another’s struggle and how it can be worked out.
This brings me to my second thought and that is from page 3- “..that it is not the function of the poet to relate what has happened, but what may happen—what is possible according to the law of probability or necessity.’ My Dad’s words spoke about the probability of creative flow when I began to relax and move away from fear. He was not stating an actual fact that was taking place he was speaking of what could happen when fear was let go.
The quote from page one has got me thinking a lot lately and I want to pose a question/objection to Aristotle's idea that pleasure comes from imitation. I agree that pleasure can come from imitation but not always. in your case yes pleasure does come from imitating your father. What happens when imitating someone becomes unpleasureable such as imitating say a negative aspect of a person. Another thing is that pleasure from imitating can only last for so long.
ReplyDeletethis is quite true..
ReplyDeletei agree that imitation is not always positive--i believe i was thinking of the 'pleasure of imitation' as in the desire to imitate that person. so, negative or positive imitation aside--the simple desire to do what you have seen done.