To the happy few

November 14, 2022
by Noriyuki Morimoto

People often talk about shifting values, or changing ways of thinking, but it is futile to strive to change. It is merely the case that someone somewhere happens to experience a shift in values, which triggers creation, so the shift cannot be reproduced by analyzing the structure of the shift in reverse.

Creation is not easily accepted by the world. It is not uncommon for artists who were completely unknown during their lifetime, or remained a small presence in some corner of the world, to be rediscovered long after their death. Creation actually begins when an artist creates something without being widely known, and is fulfilled when he or she is rediscovered and known to the world. That is the definition of creation.

Stendhal, too, was not able gain a wide readership during his lifetime. However, he dedicated his work “to the happy few,” that is, the few people who understood him, and he continued to write at an astonishingly rapid pace, motivated by his passion for writing. The act of writing itself as an objective, a work that is not intended to be completed, a work as the creative process itself, this is pure creation and art. Like the collector who collects for the sole purpose of collecting, Stendhal was a fanatic.

And his finished work is what is left naturally after the sublimation of passion, where passion is exhausted. The perfection and beauty of the work is no different from that of natural creation. True beauty is natural beauty, something that is not artificially crafted. And its beauty, found posthumously, reigns today as a creation with a large readership throughout the world. If the work had been written in order to be read, Stendhal would not have created it.

As the inevitable outcome of people’s activities, small buds of creation are born constantly around the world, but it is the result of chance that somewhere in the world, someday, a few of them will be recognized and flower into creation.

When the bud of creation unfolds as a mild form of insanity, and the ascent to true creation is merely accidental, there is no room for discussion of the creative process. However, it is possible to discuss the probability of occurrence for both. And what determines that probability is diversity.

 

[Category /Work-Style Reform]