The coincidence and the endurance of art People often have a misconception on aesthetics – or better to say – about beauty in themselves. Many believe beauty is the systematic order of things or values. But this to me can also be just a sketch, a way of seeing things from closed and darker points of view, in most cases, something learned from mediocre people and artists like that. Differently in art. By referring to concepts of life, I believe that no work, no woman, natural, physical and spiritual work, can silence that loss of knowledge and emptiness that lies within us. And when we write, we do nothing but draw out things and sensitivities, as we see in the interior of being, by building the image of their presentation. I would simply call them subordinate and irreplaceable. And I believe, however, that every work of art – written by a human hand – still stands only as an outline, a small part of life, however high and beautiful it may be. Because I mean, the same writer, if he wrote the same work twice, in both cases it would change the meaning of it and maybe they could stand in contrast to each other. This is because in any case chance intervenes. We often have been able to write something and then not like what we wrote, inspired by circumstances, and wanting to write something else, that we like or not, is a kind of other coincidence, and we could write this work differently, all my life differently. That’s because the laws of life change, so relationships between characters can take on new meanings. But the feelings within the human person also change. If we are standing next to a beautiful woman in a bookstore, you have a moment’s urge to smell her skin, touch her, feel it, as good readers do with books. They touch them with their hands, they browse them, they weigh them with their fingers, they smell, they caress them. Because in this way the random beauty of the woman before you and the curiosity of the new book led you to a mysterious sensation of discovery, to conceive and absorb as a unique subject. That woman is in your mind and unwillingly something of her that has entered your heart, interferes with any of the poet’s prose or actions. But in a more direct relation with the woman, her initial beauty would fade or lose importance, to give way to judgments or analysis of her behavior, or her beauty would develop and become almost mythmaking in the artist’s brain. But in either case, no judgement, however definitive, would be correct. I don’t intend to make any criticism in this article, but I will take some examples as proof of my thoughts. When Bukowski assumed that true love could only happen when a woman has died, when she has lost her selfishness, as if to seek that kind of love, like a flower thrown into the dumpster, for me, though it is partly true, I cannot imagine that love no longer exists, which has diverted its eternal run, to disappear or transform into fleshly and utterly vulgar pleasures. It is true that today most women have lost much of that innocent feminine grace of some time, but I cannot declare that love has been erased forever from the divine register. This inability to love, produced mostly in our modern age, that Bukowski has dealt with in his stories, is just a corner from which he departs. Because, as he says himself: “In my life I have known either whore or crazy,” he says best what the chances of life have suggested to him. Had he known another category of women, would he have written that way about love? Another writer, Fitzgerald, in “The Great Gatsby” gives us the framework of a great love, the despair and the drive of the protagonist to regain the love of his life, for which he goes beyond all limits, to realise almost fabulous, almost-naïve attempts to reborn, to be rewarded, to repair lost love. But not always everything we want in life can happen and more often re-create something we’ve lost once. And in this case, as in Bukowski’s case, we have two different parallels, but both inspired by coincidence views.
In this context, I would agree with Hermann Hesse when he wrote: “If you have loved a woman or a country, you can call yourself lucky. Even if you die, it doesn’t matter anymore. ” So, when we write, everything should be dependent on our love and humanity and not the world outside of us – always operated by chance. It doesn’t matter if our feelings are corresponding or not. The important thing is where we start. I have observed that throughout Hemingway’s books his characters are mirrored in a sweet loss, disappointed but proud, sometimes traumatised by war, but also with a sense of strength and love, with a sense of seeking in themselves. And this is not only the different style that separates Bukowski from Hemingway, but also different points of view. If we find Hemingway’s characters almost morally fallen, stripped of dreams, but in a worthy quietness while drinking with pride in their loss, Bukowski’s characters cross every limit of perversion and violence, but that should be the history of today and the future of the world, its end or the beginning? But love, and not only love between copies, but complex, is something that we touch every moment of our lives, in our daily life, even if short and momentary, but always something that shows hope, freeway, curiosity, spiritual boyhood. For this, from a humanistic point of view, I remember that Hesse and Hemingway and many others have fought day by day with their pen to develop the infinite realm of awareness. They were right when they wrote those extraordinary phrases. Although I keep Bukowski as an important writer, I often have to refer to him as one of the many who suffered from an inability to love, as a victim of casual circumstances. In this case, I believe that the best way to participate in a civilized society is tolerance, and this point is to the artists. And often, I get scared by some writers, who get scared with that way of judging and making conclusions. But with what right can we judge? And unfortunately, Bukowski is one of those writers who dies to prejudice and loves the absurd. My conception of life is not a random one, but a wide and continuous infiltration to find the various forms of beauty that appear before us. And this is a bit like the man who wanted to die under a tree with a rope, but after remembering its fruits and enjoying one of them, he decided that it was worth living for even small and simple things. Taking that library woman as an example again, it doesn’t matter what she does in life, the puritan or the whore, but only that impulse, the sensitivity that her beauty gives, the sharing of that beauty. When we take for example chance, which happens often in each of us, it should be only from a human point of view, from her good side. In this sense, beauty is not only found in the course of things or values, but also in coincidence, for example: the bed of the disordered and in the comfort of an open book, or stones in a rocky nature, to be divided there and here, in various sizes, some rough and others soft, which melts from the waters and flows of different currents, so these also give us the idea of beauty. And in all of this there is no special scheme, things we’re so used to. I said above that when we have to operate on chance, we must look at it with human eyes, but on the casual concept of things and life lies the concept of sustainability. And this enduring concept of life must be the all-out search for the darkness, since we are often thudded in their mantle. This, as I have said in my conversations with people, comes in most cases even from those little things we often ignore. But these things, seemingly benefits, simultaneously dominate within us and prepare us for the future. Now I remember a book about a man, who, disillusioned with life and people, became a monk, but soon realized that there was also an institution here, not freedom of soul along with mercy, as preached. The other monks began to abuse him until one day he escaped. Then they called in another wise monk to verify the incident. On the window, on the wall, were some words written, which after he deciphered, he read. “Even though you have humiliated and tortured me, I love you equally.” Then the monk understood the key to everything.: “A man can take anything, even his own life, but not his love.” And that’s what I really think. Love the love. Love the human. A peace and victory within you that no one can squander. By loving the little things, to grow them inside and give them great dimensions. And this kind of humanity belongs to, first of all, the creators themselves. Even when their work does not serve man, at least the work of the creator must be impartial. And that’s what I really think. Love the love. Love the human. A peace and victory within you that no one can squander. As a creator and as a human being, I have always looked at the world with a different eye. I have often been forced out of my own weakness.
Often, I have been forced out of myself by my own weakness, or by the influence of those people who have influenced me for good or ill, but on reflection I have consistently realized that one must be firm in what one calls ideals, and no compromise should be allowed to harm them. I have been almost indifferent in all the petty things that life has presented to me, and I have always avoided vain controversy because I despise the kind of controversy or debate that, instead of improving things, makes them worse. And in the end, in art, coincidence has also spawned pearls, but time has shown that only the concept of sustainability has delivered real results and values and served the process of human awareness Therefore, I would say, more time and stability in our literary works than the intentions, conflicts, and the shaky feelings that the occasion spawns! Translated from Albanian Valentina Muka Toronto, May 03, 2023
