Interiority
Hello, this is Priya Iyer. Welcome to Ten Thousand Journeys where I explore the themes and stages of archetypal journeys through personal essays, poems, and books. If you’re reading this in an email, I hope you’ll also visit the website to take part in the community conversation and to dip into the archives. If you are not already subscribed, you can subscribe here.
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Dear Reader,
I have some questions that I hope you can help answer.
Let’s start with the word interiority. For a writer, interiority means to show (rather than tell) a character’s interior world, their thoughts, feelings, and emotions. When I first heard this word a few years into my writing journey, I fell in love with it. Isn’t all art about interiority, the artist expressing theirs in what they create? This, then, is why creative work, while incredibly nourishing to the artist, thrives even more with an audience. I share my soul, and my interiority when I write, and by reading (which is a kind of witnessing), you see me. And, wanting to be seen, and acknowledged, is such an important part of being human. But is only acknowledged work, work? What advice would you give anyone whose work, creative or noncreative, is largely unacknowledged?
It appears that, for many of us, the creative work we practice- writing, painting, pottery, music, etc.- is mainly carried out in liminal times: very early, before the day can intrude, in between different external responsibilities, or later, after taking care of all that needs to be done as part of living in the world. I wonder what that kind of compression does to the art. Does it make the art richer? Does it imbue it with a scarcity mindset? Or, is that how art is made, taking what we learn from living other experiences and bringing it to the crucible of threshold/liminal times? Do we always benefit from having more time to do creative work?
Dear Reader I can’t wait to hear what you have to say.
Best,
Priya
When I first heard the word interiority, I wondered what it meant. I read it a different way though. I'd been taught as a writer to show not tell. I viewed or observed the idea of interiority as a 'telling' of the feelings of, say, the protagonist. Not showing by her/his actions. Did I read it wrong, Priya? Your observations will be appreciated.
1. why is the artist's work unacknowledged?
a) the artist wants it that way so we have to respect artist's desire
b) the artist doesn't know how to make the work acknowledgeable so the advice is to open a substack account - sooner or later it will be acknowledged.
2. i never ever heard of any art form, any, ever, that is not inspired from life. even the most abstract science fiction is inspired from life. does longer time dedicated to creation helps? possible but not in all cases. society the way it is today changed people and some people are copping better when are under pressure of deadlines and time restriction