/lit/ - Literature

I have been watching theater three times a week in the local semi-amateur theater club and I must say literature is not art. Unlike a play - which can only be performed and expressed the same way once and then is lost forever with no pretense of eternity but all pretense of meaning -, literature is an exercise of futility, a vain attempt of the author to immortalize themselves through the relief from the pressures of willing while abiding to the aesthetics of one's time. It is nonsensensical that we deem something eternal to be art when our presence in the world is temporal and our perception of the world is instantaneous.

Why does the author and the paint seek then their art to be eternal, when one's existence is ephemeral? — Personal vanity, greed and pride.

I have finally acknowledged Schopenhauer, Adorno and (I'm not joking) Deidara's take on the so called "immortal art" such as of the writers and painters. The writer is but a beggar of society, hence why their writing is contaminated with class dynamics and social hierarchies of their time. They are begging for immortality and offering falsehood in exchange.

And then there is theater. Sure there is a script, but every performance is an unique, experienced, a flash outburst of reality and meaning which can never be perceived or performed again. I cannot understate how much meaning and enjoyment I have been getting from watching the Iceman Cometh over and over again, seeing that even when I am the only one who showed up to watch and the crew is visibly miserable because of this, they still overcome their demons and provide me with meaning — the writing from Eugene O'Neill being nothing but a platform onto which one tells a story once in a single manner and then fades forever.

I can't read books the same way anymore.