The Art and the Artist, One Cannot Be Separate of the Other

When I read, I let it consume me, with permission or not, whether I allow it or not, it just consumes me completely. I am a reader but rarely do I read books that are published, I mostly read fics because I am a reader who loves the raw act of being in another person’s world for a while, but to read actual books or series or non-fiction, it takes me so much time before I finally do it. I have to read the synopsis and the reactions of those who have read it and the discussions online, and especially I need to get to know the author, because I simply cannot separate the art from the artist.

As a writer myself, what I write is never separate from me, because even if I take inspiration and analyze things, my writing is just parts of me coming together, they are my perception and my view and my deepest thinking. I could never separate myself from my art because my words came directly from me and my hours of thinking, they are me, and so before I read I need to know the author and I need to know what kind of person I am letting myself be consumed by, so I can know whether to let myself go or be wary as I read.

Because if I am not cautious, if the work came from a person with morals that are almost nonexistent, from a person who sees everything through intellect and almost none of empathy, if I read from a person who has none of humanity and is just a vessel of knowledge starved of wisdom, I could make myself vulnerable and I could easily make myself be consumed by that. It is a terrifying realization that you can hate a person’s soul but completely fall in love with the way their mind works, because when you look at their pages you are looking directly into the ugliest parts of them made beautiful, and by agreeing with their words you are basically agreeing with their darkness.

And I know myself, I know that despite knowing what I read is wrong and despite knowing it does not make sense, by then the writer could already have me by the leash with their words cuffing my emotions and making me completely illogical.

This is the exact reason why books have always started revolutions and why ink is feared more than weapons, because you have to wonder how someone like Jose Rizal succeeded in lighting a fire inside the Filipinos and starting a massive chain of events that overthrew an empire just by writing a story, and the answer is that he did not just write facts but he manipulated simple words to expose a collective pain, proving that when an author knows how to pull at the strings of your reality they can make an entire nation push past their fear and rebel.

It is the same way communism started from words in a book that reshaped how millions of workers viewed their own sweat and blood, and it is the exact same way the heavy propaganda against it started, because those in power knew that the only way to fight a dangerous idea is to write a louder, more tempting one to cuff the emotions of the public.

We look at capitalism today and we wonder how it managed to take so much of our time and our lives and our peace while we just sit back and let it happen, and the truth is that we were slowly consumed by centuries long story written by people who knew exactly how to make us believe that our worth is tied to our labor, using words that hit us so deeply that we willingly put the leash on ourselves and called it freedom. Just like the quote from The Traitor Baru Cormorant, “Freedom granted by your rulers is just a chain with a little slack.” And a slack chain is still a chain and when you wander too far you will be reminded of it.

And that is writing, that sometimes despite how wrong it is, when the words hit you and when it fists your heart and refuses to let go, you cannot help but be consumed no matter how wrong it is, because at the end of the day we are still human, and humans no matter how repressed are still beings full of emotions, and there is no better way to get hold of those emotions than words that make you feel seen and understood.