MEPHISTOPHELES

And then you’ll speak of faith and love eternal,

of a single, overpowering urge—

will that flow so easily from your heart?

FAUST

Enough, I say it will.

–    Faust, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. 

 

I write about myself quite a lot, as much as any respectable author should since we are all supposed to write for ourselves, not for others—having readers comes as an offshoot of what manifests already as a self-perpetuating inner drive. But I digress…

For as much as I write about myself, whether to clear the chaos of my mind or to share intimately with those I hold dear and close, I rarely ever publish my personal writings. Yet, for this time and particular case, I feel the need to “send it out there” as a sort of cosmological declaration that will allow me to overcome the issue at stake, at least in my head.

Those who know me well enough must know that my best unfolds under the influences of muses. I write better. I cook better. Simply put, I exist better, at my best, when I have a muse inspiring my every action and thought, whether she’s aware of that or not. Hell, whether I am consciously aware of that or not at the time it happens. My muses and musings have always enhanced me, but they also have never lasted for long. They fade. They transform. They slip away. I scare them off. It doesn’t matter what exactly makes them be gone, the constant and ultimate point is that I lose them—I lose HER, whether her name is spelt with Vs, Ds, Js, Ms, As, Ls, or Es. It doesn’t matter if she incarnates my dreams to an uncanny degree or if she represents a refreshing view of the world, I can be sure that I will lose her eventually (and too soon) because I’m too good of a friend, or not bad enough of an influence, or too passionate, or too sure about my life… The blame falls entirely on me, as a curse, which probably lies so deep within me that I can’t diagnose it. I can be as sure that I will cause my muse to go away as I can be that the sun will rise tomorrow—rise again to burn and shed light, just like my muse does time and again in my cycle of creative obsessions and romantic follies.

The more that shit happens, with each romantic failure and rejection and sabotaged friendship, the more I’m convinced that it must be ingrained in the workings of the universe, a Faustian counter-balance making me fail in the musing front in order to justify my success in others. If the universe requires a balance, then I guess that’s a fair trade, especially when I’ve been lucky enough for the universe to bend over to my will and wishes in the past.

Nonetheless, losing my muse hurts, every time. Abandonment and loss are not agreeable experiences for a non-masochist. Oddly and amazingly enough, this realization does nothing but persuade me to take the hit in order to keep a steady course. If losing my muse is the price I have to pay for my success, I take the Faustian deal. If that’s the one part about life in which the universe won’t bend to my will or benefit, so be it—let my muses be a mirage in my memory as I echo into Eternity. I shall embrace my damnation and sentence to being always the friend, a romantic fool, the clichéd artist that experiences life and constructs his world through his inner demons, outer angels, and fleeting muses. I shall stand proudly, in the future, on top of a world that I successfully built and conquered—I will be jaded for not having a significant other to reign that world with, or to climb to that top with, but sharing my success with my family and true friends shall suffice.

Hereby I solemnly sign off on my Faustian deal with the Universe and proudly embrace it as my choice. I dream and drink and dance for all the films, writings, and heroic deeds that I will have to do not only to turn my curse into a blessing but also to make it bearable, for there exists no pain that isn’t worth it for the sake of poetry. Let me exchange my inspirational soarings and romantic crashes for my ultimate success in my primal passion and vital reason—art.

FAUST

Oh my, but art is long

 and our life is fleeting.

– Faust, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.