Tag: art

The Elusive Secrets Of Writing

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Writing really is an art form once you get into it and understand it’s intricacies. What I am doing now is writing, that is surely obvious and it is one particular style of writing. I’m not entirely sure what style and while I hope that isn’t me exposing how little I understand of writing intricacies, I’m going to go with it being hard to explain and label your own style. That is probably just me making excuses of course as I’m self-conscious of describing my writing, especially if I get it wrong in the eyes of those who know. The reason I go into this is that I have started reading For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. I mentioned a few days ago when finishing The Old Man & The Sea that his writing style is very simple but that he manages to purvey a deeper meaning and understanding. While some write in technically complicated and convoluted ways he manages to get an equally deeper understanding across without turning the reader in circles first.

This is an art form in itself. For anyone who has ever written anything or appreciated others writing, getting deeper meaning and mood across is a challenging art. As I read this latest book though it does make me think of authors who write in similar simple prose yet write really badly. His writing is so simple but he does in it such a way that it is both accessible and with depth in the same moment. I’m not entirely sure how he does it though, it can’t just be short sentences. It is one of those books they teach children in school and it is clear to see why. Deeper meaning and accessible is a winner. There is a reason he won the Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize for Fiction after all.

I mentioned earlier about long and convoluted sentences. Here I must hold my hands up and confess my guilt. In my defence I learnt how to write like this when studying part of my philosophy degree in that you need to make sure every angle of meaning is covered. The problem here is that it doesn’t allow the reader to form any interpretation for themselves and such long sentences can be both hard to follow and boring. There’s a website called The Hemingway App in which you can upload your work and see what reading age and grade it would be. It also gives advice on shortening sentences, whether sentences are hard or very hard to read and such things like excessive use of adverbs, passive voice or when simpler words would be better suited. I use too many adverbs for example and too many of my sentences are ‘hard’ or ‘very hard’ to read. My ego would like to think hard or very hard to read simply means they are written to a very high standard and level but my ego can miss the point sometimes. Up to this moment this piece is a Grade Nine which would be 14-15 year old’s. I rarely use this app but when I first discovered it did check out a few of my pieces for curiosity’s sake. I had a Grade Fourteen which I was very happy with myself over but generally they vary between Grades Eight to Eleven. Apparently we should aim for eight to nine if we want maximum reach. I don’t really know whether I want maximum reach but a fool would dismiss the importance of such knowledge. I hope not to be a fool forever.

Final Mark – Grade Eight

https://youtu.be/yTcS6_1MfHA

Creativity Takes Root

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I’m really enjoying all the creativity people are coming up with while in isolation. I just watched the most remarkable video of a man in a leotard dancing in his garden. Without the virus that moment would never have happened. I was tagged in a live music show this evening, which I only discovered afterwards unfortunately but enjoyed listening to it after the event. Another friend shared her sisters morning fitness class as she is a personal trainer which will give people some much needed exercise and hopefully some new habits. People have already started to put works of art up.

It is early days and people may still be in the excitable fun stage of isolating but for now they seem to be doing all the right things. In time lets see how it goes as they start to suffer from seclusion but the videos coming out of Italy show that even after weeks and an horrendous situation they are still on their balconies singing. There was a video of someone playing Bella Ciao with a saxophone from their balcony which raised a smile. People are worried, scared, bored and in some cases alone but they have found the drive to produce, to share, to inspire.

There is something about being human that shows how well we can adapt to circumstances when we need to. We may be a bunch of soft snowflakes and tough right wingers who both seem to take offence in equal measure but when it comes down to it we seem capable of getting on and surviving when we have to. It is early days potentially and we’re expecting another couple of months of this, fatalistically just waiting…maybe I’ll write about that tomorrow though…but even with that hanging over our heads we find the spirit just to carry on. People shouldn’t be out and about of course but it’s amazing that those who are seem to be smiling and laughing with each other. The initial shock has passed and we’re just getting on with it.

If it’s possible to remain objective within all of this then it would be incredible just to sit and observe how people’s mood as a collective has changed and evolved until now and will do over these next few months. But I’m not objective let’s be honest, I am viewing this through my very own eyes mixed with and confused by a certain combination of fear, bravery, bravado and ignorance that keeps me getting out of bed in the morning and through the day; being happy when I’m happy and sad when I’m sad. Crisis brings people together but it also reminds us while we may have our differences, our base instinct, feelings and emotions are all pretty similar. Carry on people, stay indoors if you can and keep on performing. Keep us all sane and keep us smiling.

Our Unique Perceptions

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

How accurately do we imagine ourselves to how other people imagine we are? That is of course an impossible question to answer as it is not only unique to the one person being imagined but is unique again to each person doing the imagining. People either think unreasonably highly of themselves or unnecessarily lowly of themselves and everything in between; as a result of a lifetimes worth of experiences justifiably or unjustifiably leading to that conclusion. We all know examples of extremes both ways in our friendship or acquaintance groups and these are well worn examples of perception and self-delusion. What we don’t always think about though is whether we view that person accurately or whether what we think is actually part of another delusion.

There was a time when I used to believe that there was nothing unique left in the world. I shared this information with a rather creative friend who made music along with a variety of other interesting and inspired works of art and bodies of thought. He was a character, potentially a genius but certainly someone who viewed the world in a way uncommon to most. I have avoided using the word unique there because it would be too easy but he was horrified at my suggestion that it didn’t exist. I can’t really remember my argument anymore for why nothing was unique but I think it came from an idea that everything came from something; music for example was inspired by other music and never existed independently from anything else. These are not necessarily my thoughts anymore and I would likely agree with him now as no one piece of art will ever be exactly like another. Some may be inspired by others to varying degrees but there will always be something put into it by the creator, even not obvious at first, which came solely from the person making it, their unintentional signature move it could be said.

It is with this that we view others too. You may believe it is obvious that your friend thinks very highly of themselves but others view that person with eyes inspired by a completely unique set of experiences and past conditioning. We get easily frustrated when people don’t think like us when we believe what we think to be obvious. The way we view people is unique just as how your friends view you is unique. You may have an idea of your character but if you have a group of five friends, to them there are five different versions of you running around doing things in five different ways. Nobody views you as you view yourself, it is impossible yet we get so hung up on what people think of us. Just imagine how horrified we would be if we really knew how people thought; each and every version. Perception is a remarkable thing.

When Business Misses The Point

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Another example of people missing the point was raised in the Sunday newspapers today. Interestingly like young people who dream of having an interesting creative arts and sports filled career, this one also involves those in education; the University of Sunderland, which like most universities now operates within the corporate world, has decided to drop it’s humanities courses and rely solely on ‘career focused’ courses. One can assume therefore that they are under the assumption that there can be no career possibilities for those studying sociology, history or politics yet I’m quite sure there continue to be a raft of political positions opening up on a regular basis. Evidently though it seems those who actually want to get into politics are better off studying business or law and never the actual field they plan on moving into. Perhaps as a former politic student myself it would be worth pointing out that all politics courses do is educate you on the vast corruption and immoral behaviour required. Not exactly something to aspire to.

The point though with this move is that people continue to overlook the arts. How many of those involved in business will patronisingly belittle the arts and then wonder why they cannot find any decent artist to run the visual side of their advertising campaigns. Do people not realise that were it not for writers and poets the language they speak would be simplified to uninspiring simplicity, they would never be able to manipulate people into buying or believing new things. How about all those middle-aged balding Chief Executives squeezing into their old band t-shirts and seeing some overly priced tour of their favourite now-geriatric band from their youth. Just imagine if Roger Waters or Robert Plant had decided they should focus on a more sensible career and not become rock stars.

People forget about how much in their life is down to creativity. Everything around us whether it is art, music or ideas has such an affect not always upon our bank balance but certainly on how we enjoy and sense the world around us. Sociology, philosophy and politics create the societies we live in; the arts and music make them comfortable. Even the architects who design those beautiful buildings we’re all so fond of advertising to the tourists who spend money visiting our cities and monuments. It’s endless and just folly to overlook these vital glues that hold everything together. Maybe economics and business studies are the pragmatic drivers although thats a debatable concept, without some inspiration though even they would lack the creativity they require to push themselves forward. Like creates like after all, but in this case the first like seems to be born in an ever shrinking and ever under appreciated part of society. One which at this rate will disappear into the forgotten reams of the new grey, permanent growth of our future dystopian world.

Prioritise Dreams

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

There was an article on the BBC today which I found very interesting in how it allowed for different perspectives of how we view society. The article discussed how the hopes and dreams of youths are at odds with the type of jobs that will be available to them. Apparently “five times as many seventeen and eighteen year olds in the UK want to work in art, culture, entertainment and sport as there are jobs available” and that equated to over half of those surveyed only wanting to work in this sector. Seemingly the industry that requires people the most is accommodation and catering, unfortunately for them they require seven times the number of students who expressed an interest, wholesale and retail appears to suffering from similar disinterest. According to this article, the report believes “young people’s career aspirations need to be constructively challenged”. The article then moves on to how certain young people potentially feel they cannot achieve career goals because of their gender, ethnicity or social-economic background.

Now this article can be viewed two ways I would suggest. On the one hand it can be seen that the youth of today need to embrace a little reality, that they won’t always be able to do the jobs they want, must stop being fixated with being either Instagram models or footballers – terrible gender stereotyping I know but humour me – but also not allow the barriers of their own existence to hold them back from a more serious career. On the other hand it appears that the majority of young people want an interesting, creative career in the arts and entertainment world, and not to be working as waiters or hotel cleaners. To completely dismiss the first idea would most likely expose a glaring ignorance about the realities of life for many people, “destined for disappointment” as the article put it, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some truth in it. However what the article seems to not take into consideration, and this is understandable given the angle it is written from, is that if the young peoples desires “do not meet the demands of the economy” then perhaps the economy should not be the factor that dictates what work people do, perhaps society has it’s priorities wrong.

I would love to see the numbers of people wanting to be artists and musicians, over Instagram models and footballers, because that could change my perspective slightly. That is though my take on value in the creative arts world and I would be an ignorant man to not see the folly in that. There are many reasons young people will not get the jobs they want in life, but they don’t mention that perhaps these jobs just don’t satisfy people, maybe if people could choose they would not endure jobs that exist for no other reason than for the sake of existing, bring no real benefit to society or the earth, and are nothing more than ways to pay tax and kill time as we wait to die. Surely it needn’t be this way. Money, economics and business are not fundamentally bad things in their own right but misused and corrupted they lead to the real needs of people being either ignored or dismissed as childish dreams. We all dreamt of something when we were young though, why is we can never seem to remember our dreams?

An Unexpected Beating

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Well lads it finally happened, I went and got myself beaten up by a girl. Cheers of delight ring out across the skies from all the girls who have crossed my path and been wronged in the process. That would be silence obviously because it is zero girls. Back to the beating though, I got kicked in the head. Let’s try and create an image shall we. I’m tall, six foot three, and not big with muscle but I can hold my own. Not tonight though, for I’ve been doing some martial arts and attended my second kickboxing class. My New Years resolution involved jiu jitsu but events have evolved into kickboxing instead. I’m not a fighter, my instincts are to talk my way out of the trouble I’ve just talked myself into on the rare occasions it tries to find me. I don’t get the raw angry appreciation of hitting someone but when you see people fighting with talent and technique it feels like a majestic art form unfolding.

I did Krav Maga for eight months when I lived in Athens and I really enjoyed that too even though it was in Greek and I had to guess most of what was being said. You can’t spar in it though because there’s no gloves, it’s self defence and it’s designed to be rapid and brutal. Interestingly enough there are elements of kickboxing involved, I can see this in the technique already, but in kickboxing you spar and you actually need to learn how to defend yourself in a way you can’t in a Krav Maga beginners class. It gave me the taste required to search out more though.

This girl was good. It was the last practice of the session and the guy I had been training with had to leave so I went with her. She was small, reasonable skinny and an advert for not judging people by appearance. Interestingly enough when I kicked her she asked me to kick a little softer which is fair but it didn’t stop her coming in with some crazy combinations. In fairness to her though she never really tried to connect too much, misjudged that head kick though. And in truth she kicked though my pathetically positioned glove and hit me so it wasn’t too painful just a shock. She was all apologetic but I felt I needed to act tough, especially as I had to ask the coach for a sticky plaster in the first class because I cut my finger.

On a more serious note though martial arts are a very interesting form of practice, dare I say sport. As I said I’m not a fighter and I find most people who go to these things aren’t. What they do though is get you fitter, stronger and mentally train your mind in a way few other things do. You need to concentrate on what you are going to do while not letting your guard down, not letting your focus drop for a second. There has been a lot written about it but it creates a mental discipline and if you haven’t noticed by now that appears to be the long lost Holy Grail my life has suddenly started searching for. Maybe next time I’ll put aside my assumptions, learn to defend myself and accept that just this once it may not be an embarrassing thing to be beaten up by a girl.