It is often I see the creative arts as a kind of wandering –
wandering outside the margins of convention,
allowing for direction to be formed en-route rather than pre-supposed. To
wander, could be seen as, perhaps surprisingly, to claim a kind of freedom. It
allows the environment one experiences to be installed with a kind of
subjective richness, as in the case of Yeat’s ‘Wandering Aengus’ who
reaches the climax of ‘The Golden apples
of the sun’. Here the associations of human and natural richness blend to give language,
a process seemingly hinting back to the Romantic tradition – a tradition
especially popular in the environs of England such as the Lake district in the
1700 and 1800’s where Wordsworth’s wanderings inspired much of his work. Yet,
in another sense. It is ironic that this wandering is often overlooked. People often allude excitedly to Wordsworth’s
poem ‘Daffodils’ which is actually titled according to its first line ‘I
wandered lonely as a cloud.’ This line could be seen as immediately more moving
and momentous than any daffodil – blending the human with the landscape,
offering wandering as an opportunity to feel the sublime.
It could be seen today however, that wandering is a dying
art. This is a society terse with time pressure, urbanity and expectation. We
allow thus to dictate routine seemingly as strictly as codes of the past, the routine
of academic practice, for example – school, then college, then university – has
now come to be associated with creativity, is the path for writers,
journalists, artists. There is a set path to follow, so to speak, from which
people are frightened to diverge.
I can perceive that there is an extent of fear involved, especially
within writing as a practice – often accompanied by the notion ‘you are doing
it wrong.’ It seems perfectly acceptable for the reader to grace the
countryside, book in hand, but the artist is regarded as almost threatening – as
if taking the surrounding landscape and manipulating it to point. I believe
that writing is: 1) a much more beautiful process than that and 2) not just
inspired by clichéd walks in the countryside, if creativity is a form of
wandering, then the physical wandering can encompass any environment. After
all, it was Dickens’ wanderings round London before and after he would visit
his father in a Southwark prison which inspired much of his work.
For in wandering, the senses are greeted with a plethora of
potential – it is to experience and appreciate the unknown, we see great good
in places unexpected, and also the dubious depths of society we would perhaps
typically avoid. Wandering even through a city centre can hold much more artistic
potential than had one been there simply to fulfil a task – like to buy a
certain product. It is the prescription that walking should have use or be
avoided which has seemingly bred an unhealthiness in creative culture. Even
today, those who wander may be termed ‘delinquent’ or misled’. Rather, perhaps
they are searching for the start of a new lead.
To wander is not always aimless either, but part of
unfolding ones aims. It transforms the need to ‘get out’ and experience fresh the
textures of existence, which is valuable in itself. It sets up its own paradox
– a richness from poverty, take the Beat generation of 1960’s America and
later England whose creative output was
significantly inspired by their lives as wanderers or ‘bums’. As in the work of
Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs for example, there is a wonderful freedom, a
nervous energy to the prose, striking a key difference from the literary modes
of previous. Allen Ginsberg, as evident in his epic poem ‘Howl’ took
inspiration from the angry throb of the streets, the accumulative anger of the supermarkets.
Appreciating this art of wandering and observing is life-affirming – it turns the
failed shopping expedition, missing the
bus, even the mundane experiences like walking to work, into an experience, for
example, the taking of detour on the way to work just to see some street you’ve
never seen before, is a little like opening another alley in the mind. Potential
can be scraped from anywhere, often the most unexpected places.
Therefore, this could be seen as a cry outside the margins –
a cry not to reclaim wandering, as that implies limiting it, but to appreciate
it. There is nothing wrong with simply observing what it is to live, experience
for experiences sake. The holiday could be seen as a product of that psyche –
an immersion in a different experience. To wander therefore, is not necessarily
to be misled – as Tolkein phrased it – ‘not all those who wander are lost’. To
wander is to expose oneself – in a way which can be both positive and negative to the different textures of existence. It
can oft be a simple pleasure.
Purpose is a path we have often come to prescribe, thus perhaps
it is a show of artistic impulse not to re-allign it, but to defy it. To wander
is to wonder – and surely that is an incredible thing.
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