are words really futile devices?
on combating writer's block with the act of exploring other art
It feels like summer. Do you want to know why I know it feels like summer? It’s not the heat, or the calendar– it’s listening to the Call Me By Your Name soundtrack and feeling that it’s right.
Okay, I am exaggerating a little bit, but if you also hold that film & the songs used within it in a special part of your heart, you know what I mean. It’s finally the time of the year when you can relish in pretending you’re really, really somewhere in northern Italy.
Like the Perlman villa is just a bike ride away.
That aside– yesterday I had the bafflingly universal experience of listening to a song for what felt like the thousandth time, and only really hearing the lyrics for the first time.
The Doveman remix of Futile Devices has long been a staple on many of my playlists– many of them summer-specific compilations– but yesterday was the first time the lyrics really, really clicked. Particularly the concluding line: “And words are futile devices.”
It seeped into my skin the way a melted ice cream disappears into hot pavement on such a June day as this.
I was outside on the back porch as this happened, painting a Virgin Mary statue (recently acquired by my family for the garden) white, so as to brighten her grey, stony facade. And I can’t help but wonder if this particular act of pure, blissful creativity was the reason I experienced the song differently.
I’ve been experiencing a little bit of a lull in my writing– not quite writer’s block, but something less overwhelming. Writer’s lethargy, maybe? It could be thanks to fashion being slightly slow this time of year, runway wise. Or maybe I just haven’t been indulging in enough art via other mediums.
That’s what I’ve been thinking about since hearing the words “and words are futile devices”. I kept turning it over in my mind, a mental rotisserie chicken dripping with delectable trains of thought. Are words really futile devices?
The song’s analogy in context is clear– there are feelings so enormous, so inexplicable that words could never do them justice. It’s one of the film’s grounding principles: is it better to speak or to die?
I’ve always been firmly team speak, but I really pondered it yesterday. And the more I pondered it, and the longer I painted, I arrived at what may seem a simple conclusion.
After a few weeks of pulling words out of myself with difficulty, the words easily returned to me– but only after a day of painting a statue in the backyard, listening to music from a film soundtrack, after watching a documentary about a podcast. I suddenly realized I had so much to say again.
When I explore my own varied toolbelt of creative pursuits, and devote time to other artistic mediums, the writing flows. Simple, but easily forgettable in a world that pushes us towards constantly capitalizing, constantly investing only in the things that profit you in some way. There’s something so freeing about pouring energy into something that doesn’t pay you in dollars and cents, but in the experience of losing yourself to creative flow. Like painting a garden statue. Or watching the movie you’ve been meaning to.
Maybe the reason you can’t write anything is because you’ve been spending too much time staring at the open blank doc on your computer. Instead of focusing on the world’s push for profitable creativity, turn your focus to modern society’s access to all forms of art. The ability to pull up any painting you desire in a google search, or find a well-received indie film in a few clicks is something to not only be cherished, but also to be pursued. The same with painting tutorials on YouTube, or *public library request systems.
It’s all there for the taking! It might lead you to the same moment of enlightenment I had in the garden: words are only futile devices if you aren’t paying attention to the rest of the world around you.
It’s far better to speak than to die, but speaking might come easier to you if you take a look around every once in a while.
* support your local library!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (it’s good for your community, it’s good for you, & it’s an act of resistance in the current political climate, where education is power & libraries face cuts to vital funding)