This is going to be another one of those posts that’s as much a reminder to myself as it is to anybody else. During my abortive attempt to catch this morning’s train, my iShuffle offered up a song I haven’t heard in a while – KMFDM’s “Megalomaniac.” Even more so now than years ago when I first heard it, there’s a bit in the lyrics that seems to speak directly to me:
In the age of super-boredom
Rape & mediocrity
Celebtrate relentlessness
Menace to society
It’s difficult for me to think of anything more relentless than an idea, especially in the creative mind. The flashes of inspiration that prompt the creation of a work or series of works often extends beyond the original framer of the idea into all sort of permutations. The idea of being out of control, even in a creative sense, is very frightening for some people.
Yet the idea does not go away. A creative mind can struggle to ignore it or put it behind them as they do something responsible, but it’s there. It sits. It waits. And every so often, it rattles its cage. It won’t be ignored for long. It’s relentless.
It’s an admirable sort of relentlessness, in my opinion. The idea doesn’t give up. We shouldn’t, either.
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