Inkwell 2018-2019

How to Commit a Crime by Rachel Poteet

This is, of course, the equivalent of saying that coffee is just warm bean water. In essence, a cup of coffee is just warm bean water, but that doesn’t account for everything. A cup of coffee is a stimulant, a bitter taste, a mode of hydration, and even more. A cup of coffee is a symbol of livelihood to many, of the tucked-away coffee shop where you write your thesis on Saturdays, of the thing your father couldn’t start his day without. It’s jokes and culture and different blends of espresso added to different amounts of foamed milk. It is all this, and just warm bean water. A thing is components, symbology, potential, surrounding connotations, and all that from two things that the first person to ever brew a cup did not create or conceive of– coffee beans and water. In this same way, when an artist ‘steals’ unoriginal elements and combines them in a new way, new things begin to exist. For example, although I know it’s a little worn-out with use, the musical Hamilton combines hip-hop and the American Revolution. Its creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, did not invent either of these things, but simply envisioned them together, and then put them together. He did not give the world new things to look at; he just gave us his eyes to look at them, and thus the night was made new. When artists expect themselves to create new elements, they lose their inspiration. When I sit down in front of a blank document and order my brain to make something, it’s like if someone had asked me to build a car without any parts. I need to go out and find things that speak to me– stories from history, interesting paintings, my own memories– before I can make something new. I make the mistake time and time again of thinking that what’s valuable about my content is the view, and not my eyes.

Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth. Lying is inherent to writing, but that’s not the only surface wrong that content creators seemingly commit. I like to joke that I’m on a number of FBI watch lists, since my search history includes an exhaustive list of lizard biology, probably every website that exists on aconitine, several historical accounts of life in a harem, and about fourteen views of a military video of twenty thousand pounds of C4 being detonated. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if I actually was, that’s not the sort of crime I’m talking about either. What I mean is stealing. Almost anyone can tell a story. In whatever language, through whatever means, anyone who can communicate in some capacity can tell a story. Storytelling is one of the hallmarks of human culture; it defines our interactions, our relationships. Anyone can tell a story, but it takes a proper storyteller to tell a story well. This is the defining characteristic of all sorts of artists– directors, actors, comic artists, writers, poets. A captivating, interesting, beautiful story is their ideal end product. Poets, for example, don’t often compose from totally original ideas. Someone writing about a mountain or a pair of shoes or a family is composing from their memories. They don’t first dream up the mountain and then write about it. Painters, in the same way, usually require at least a reference image to draw on. Actors don’t create character from nothing– they draw on the script, on observed behaviours, on their own experiences. Artists are creative, not creators. Since we can’t create ex nihilo, we have to understand that all of our work– our most precious, beautiful work– is, in its barest form, cobbled-together pieces of things we’ve already interacted with. It’s just a new arrangement. We may love it and cherish it, but it’s not completely ours.

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