I have been enjoying watching movies in DVD format for the “extras” it provides, including running commentary by writers and directors. I recently watched the writers’ commentary for “Pirates of the Caribbean,” a movie that seems to be just a joyously filmed flight of fancy (based on an amusement ride, no less) and nothing more. I was amazed to learn, from listening to the writers talk about their creative process, that the story of Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth Swann could have ended up being any one of several plots they’d experimented with and then discarded. Somehow, these writers managed to fall into the right groove, and plot and characters emerged out of chaos to create a great entertainment.
Good art seems to fall out of the sky in its perfect state. When we see it we often forget that it began as a blank computer screen, a solid block of marble, an empty canvas — all of which the artist could have fleshed out with any number of possibilities. Many artists fortunate enough to have been the conduits of great works acknowledge that their egos had simply stopped trying to coerce the piece, that they had surrendered to it and let a spirit speak through them.
It’s been said that we can make art of our very lives, and I’ve never felt that to be more true than in how we respond to suffering. Suffering is woven into the fabric of this life; it is part of reality. Just as an artist can either surrender to his art or coerce it, we can either invite suffering to instruct and shape us or we can try to coerce reality itself into our preconceived notions.
The operative word in that latter option is “try.” Unfortunately, reality won’t be coerced. The meaning of life will not be invented, it must be discovered. And so we’re left with the invitation, the forced smile as we open our heart’s door and ask our suffering what it requires of us, and how we can create the better story of ourselves with it, rather than in opposition to it.
Just how to do this is hard to get at. I can tell you that one of my first questions of suffering when I finally stop trying to ignore or fight her is, “Did I create you?” If my defenses are down, my biochemistry is right, the planets are aligned, and I’ve eaten my veggies, an affirmative answer to this question can sometimes be enough to put an end to the suffering. But what about when the answer is clearly “no”? What if — as is the case with illness and bereavement and other losses often handed to us by chance — our suffering has been visited upon us without warning and without our consent?
Then, in our best moments, we are called to be artists, reshaping our helplessness and bitterness as an author reshapes his first draft, as a sculptor chips away with sheer strength at her marble wall. One thing is for certain — if you’re alive, you’re going to suffer. The only question is whether or not you will surrender to your story
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