FollowI am currently re-reading Mark Vonnegut’s “Just Like Life Without Mental Illness Only More So.”
In chapter 17 “There’s Nothing Quite as Final as a Dead Father”, in his case the legendary Kurt Vonnegut, he talks about one of Kurt Vonnegut’s more famous quotes, the one that actually starts my chapbook, how about how art makes us better and creates something.
“If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”
Here are some of Mark Vonnegut’s thinking about making art. He was a writer and also liked to paint watercolors.
My father gave me the gifts of being able to pay attention to my inner narration no matter how tedious the damn thing could be at times and the knowledge that creating something, be it music or a painting or a poem or a short story, was a way out of wherever you were and a way to find out what the hell happens next and not have it just be the same old thing. It’s better to live in a world where you can write and paint and tell a few jokes than one where you can’t.
All the arts are ways to start a dialogue with yourself about what you’ve done, what you could have done differently, and whether or not you might try again. Whether or not you want to make a living or can make a living at it, people who consistently bother to try almost always get good or at least a little better.
Kurt was always trying to reach a little beyond what he was sure of. His refusal to find a groove and stay there when he was famous and successful was admirable, but it was also because he dreaded what life would be if he stopped being creative, honest and willing to be awkward.
Right now I am trying to learn Spanish, I should probably do some Babbeling today on babbel.com. I am trying to learn guitar playing with the guitar for a while most days, and trying to write everyday with the blog and Three Good Things on Facebook. I guess one disadvantage of doing Three Good Things on Facebook only is that it is effemeral to me until I see the anniversary of the thoughts. But, I think that is okay, I guess I could make a Three Good Things Blog. So many of them are similar each day. I love my wife, I love the kitties, nature is beautiful, the little things matter.
I have been also quoting other Mark Vonnegut after Googling “Mark Vonnegut Quotes” on going on Goodreads, there are 3 pages of them.
“Beyond a certain point, gathering further evidence of the hurtfulness and shortcomings of one’s family, employer, et cetera is like eating the same poisonous mushroom over and over and expecting that sooner or later it will be nutritious.”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So: A Memoir
“I understand perfectly why some of my autistic patients scream and flap their arms–it’s to frighten off extroverts”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So
“Writing is very hard mostly because until you try to write something down, it’s easy to fool yourself into believing you understand things. Writing is terrible for vanity and self-delusion.”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So: A Memoir
This one is very sad.
“I don’t think the people today who start hearing voices, stop eating and sleeping, and run amuck are likely to get good treatment. Having more knowledge, better diagnostic capabilities, better medications with fewer side effects, can’t make up for the fact that most patients are being treated by doctors, therapists, and hospitals, who are operating under constraints and incentives that reward non-treatment, non-hospitalization, non-therapy, non-follow-up, non-care. Lost to follow-up is the best outcome a health insurer can hope for.”
― Mark Vonnegut
“If you believe that the dollars made by the pharmaceutical industry are plowed back into research that leads to better and better medications, you probably believe in the tooth fairy as well.”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So: A Memoir
“We’re here to get each other through this thing, whatever it is.”
― Mark Vonnegut
“What occurs to people when they read Kurt [Vonnegut] is that things are much more up for grabs than they thought they were. The world is a slightly different place just because they read a damn book. Imagine that.”
― Mark Vonnegut
“Introverts almost never cause me trouble and are usually much better at what they do than extroverts. Extroverts are too busy slapping one another on the back, team building, and making fun of introverts to get much done. Extroverts are amazed and baffled by how much some introverts get done and assume that they, the extroverts, are somehow responsible.”
― Mark Vonnegut
“Who but a brazen crazy person would go one-on-one with blank paper or canvas armed with nothing but ideas?”
― Mark Vonnegut
“None of us are entirely well, and none of us are irrecoverably sick.”
― Mark Vonnegut
“I often took him as one of God’s little jokes on me. When I was in desperate trouble, what saved me from a fate worse than death? To what do I owe my life? Was it love, affection, understanding, friends, wisdom? No no no. It was a man who looks like a poor copy of Walt Disney, drives pink Cadillacs, wears baby-blue alligator shoes, and appears to have the emotional depth of a slightly retarded potato.”
― Mark Vonnegut, The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity (I think this was Kurt Vonnegut he is speaking of)
“The biggest gift of being unambiguously mentally ill is the time I’ve saved myself trying to be normal.”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So
“He couldn’t help thinking that all that money we were spending blowing up things and killing people so far away, making people the world over hate and fear us, would have been better spent on public education and libraries. It’s hard to imagine that history won’t prove him right, if it hasn’t already.”
― Mark Vonnegut (on Kurt Vonnegut)
“Today it’s nice to be able to entertain odd thoughts without having to marry them all. Thank God. I can think whatever the hell I want. Entertaining odd thoughts won’t make you crazy. Refusing to entertain odd thoughts won’t make you well.”
― Mark Vonnegut
“At the end of his life, which had included financial ruin in the Great Depression, his wife’s barbiturate addiction and death by overdose, and then his own lung cancer, Doc said, “It was enough to have been a unicorn.” What he meant was that he got to do art. It was magic to him that his hands and mind got to make wonderful things, that he didn’t have to be just another goat or horse.”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So (on Kurt Vonnegut)
Another thing that I like in Mark Vonnegut’s book is that he has terrible handwriting too. Although unlike Mark Vonnegut my handwriting is okay.
Here is an excellent NPR story about “Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So” by Mark Vonnegut, that includes the first few pages of the book.
It’s an excellent book, that I still need to finish today.
***1/2