cutting through the noise

The thing I’m always looking for—in art, in life, in general—is something that cuts through the noise. In art, it’s when I feel the asynchronous presence of another. Someone was really there, alive and present, when they made it and when I look at this work, or read it, or listen to it, I’m really there too.

Another way of saying this is being present is a requirement for making something great.

This isn’t how people talk about art making. Typical writing advice is: butt in chair, write every day, 1,000 words a day (500 if you’re really swamped). Now I get an allergic reaction whenever I see some quote from a Paris Review interview on Instagram with a million likes where an acclaimed writer talks about how they write every day. I think this content goes viral because it breaks down something inexplicable, practically sacred—a classic novel—into a series of instructions. Do this, then this, then this, and by the end of it, you’ll have a novel.

I’m finishing up my next book (well, next two books—more on that later), and to get here, I’ve had to unlearn a lot of this encouragement—the belief in writing as a rote process. I brush my teeth at least twice a day and this isn’t leading me toward a masterpiece of teeth cleaning. I’m almost never paying attention to the toothbrush in my mouth. Maybe never.

If I can’t be present on the blank white page, if I’m typing to meet my word count for the day—just typing because I have to, checking it off a checklist—how can I hope to express the presence that cuts through? So that someone else, years and miles from when I am at this laptop, can feel it too?

The other part of this is making sure I’m in a place to receive the work that cuts through. I’m seeing a lot more movies in theaters lately because if I’m willing to give it two or three hours of my life then I can’t let my phone shield me from the possibility of this work cutting through.

I can’t always tell if something cuts through the noise and reaches someone else. But I do know what cuts through to me and this work doesn’t come around very much. I have to put effort into it just to be in a place to receive it. That’s a vulnerable position to be in. It’s easier to laugh at artifice, appreciate something viewed diagonally, rather than sit quiet and open and welcome the possibility of a transformation in you.

This might sound romantic and it should. Something that cuts through the noise also seduces. I’m usually floating around unfocused and locked into a life where I think I know what’s about to happen and what’s expected of me. I can have the same conversation three times in a day with three different people. What’s better than something or someone who anchors you to the present and makes you wish to experience minutes as minutes rather than seconds or hours?

Finally, what frustrates me the most in art right now are the cynical attempts to be political. This work isn’t present to the moment, it isn’t channeling responses to crises—courage, fear, resistance, despair. Instead, well-worn buzzwords gesture to the moment and force significance when only cynical intentions led to the creation of the work itself.

I think I might write a second part to this, but here’s what I’ve got so far.

Thanks for reading.

If you have a moment, please consider listening to my interview with The Point for their podcast series Selected Novels, on JG Ballard and how his work influenced me.