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Brooch with a Bird’s Claw, c. 1860-1870, Scottish

"Sometimes entertainment is an overrated function of art. Sometimes being made uncomfortable is the point. Sometimes being repulsed by something is the point."

A beautifully etched and gilt Burgonet made for Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, attributed to Kolman Helmschmid,

Weight: 5 lbs/2285 g

This gave me a major eye roll (mainly because of people who’ve interacted with this) and I usually just post bullshit mainly because I’m not used to people perceiving me and being vulnerable but I’ve desperately been wanting to start sharing my deep thoughts and rants I’ve talked to myself for hours about alone in my room since posts of people freely ranting is what encouraged me think deeper and feel not alone and helped me fully understand wtf everyone else was talking about.

I just need to go on a major rant cause idk if I misinterpreted this (because of who I saw interact with this and I saw somewhat ignorant takes and trains of thoughts from them that on the surface wouldn’t be harmful but I see patterns and know where these thoughts eventually end up) but the way this is all stated is so confusing cause it disproves its own point in the end… (no hate to whatever article or book this is from as this is taken out of context and so I am only going off of what only this amount of information says and what I know of the person who interacted with this post.)

Every story has messages and meanings whether the author knew of them or not. Outside of stories every piece of art, marketing strategy, policies, basic sayings, and general words people say have deeper messages and are rooted somewhere. This is what makes making and sharing art or expressing yourself in any kind of way (doesn’t even have to be creatively), a vulnerable act. It’s not because you’re just willingly expressing something about yourself/your view points. It’s because you’re allowing people the ability to see things about you that you didn’t even know you were letting others know and in lots of cases didn’t know about yourself to begin with.

It’s a vulnerable thing because people start noticing things about you and your mind or the story and all its intricacies that you didn’t think they’d get from a simple opinion you shared to the novel that you thought thoroughly about and said it didn’t have any message.

To get more specific about writing and books since that’s what this was about, every story has a meaning. They can have multiple, an infinite amount actually, that other people can add to and notice even if the author didn’t have any initial meaning in mind so the statement “every story has a message” isn’t assuming that a story can be summarized neatly enough to the point that you didn’t even need to read it so why write it. It’s because it’s just another way of saying a story in its bare bones is saying something about x topic or relating to x thing because… of course it is. So to claim stories don’t have messages because author’s didn’t have one initially in mind is dumb or to claim that the phrase is incorrect or wrong is also so confusing to me because in the final paragraphs it confirms that stories… do have messages and meanings. It just doesn’t have to be a planned/known thing to the author or limited to one and like DUH.

A message like ‘friendships are important’ is simple but simplicity is just a way to quickly and briefly describe what all the intricacies and deep connections and thoughts of a story is amounting to. It doesn’t take away anything, it’s like tropes. It’s only a box if you yourself as the author or reader limit the words on the page to only that message and limiting yourself to only see that message in a literal straightforward way, as if stories cannot have multiple or be deeply profound in one message anyway. As if everything isn’t all connected and related to each other anyway. As if what you can learn and take away from one message can be applied to another and so all in all that’s why a story can have multiple/an infinite amount of messages, connections, allegories, and meanings while only seeming to talk about one thing/experience.

Stories having a message doesn’t take away from what the story is telling and the uniqueness of it. The same tropes and “lessons” have been written about for years so it’s obvious enough that writing isn’t about writing something so unique because if you’re an actual writer (reader especially), through writing, reading, and creating we realize we have all never had a unique experience. That we all just get surprised others experience the same things we do because we often keep things to ourselves or try to blanket statement shit. What is unique about stories is the unique ways individuals describe un-unique, basic, universal experiences in such a personal way. I’m often impressed and envious about how someone describes something I’ve experienced that I get kinda mad that I hadn’t thought of it sooner, but also makes me understand what I and what someone else went through in a new and more profound way. Do people not see that as valuable and just think books are meant to be read and not thought about and taken with you to the real world.

“Why not just deliver the message?” CAUSE CREATIVITY? Cause it’s not just about learning the basic principles of something new and never talked about before. It’s not just about being the most evolved human being and only learning new things and messages in the most direct and basic ways!? Why do we even do anything anymore? Why do humans keep going through the same things, or having to learn the same lessons, or creating forms of art about the same topics with the same messages to then have the same conversations? Because it’s the human experience!! Why not describe something that has been described a million times in your own unique way because no one has ever heard you describe it, that’s all anyone ever has anymore, THEIR OWN THOUGHTS AND WAYS TO DESCRIBE THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE!! Why not describe things in round-a-bout creative way to make it a little more fun, interesting, relatable but to also have us thinking about the same concepts and things we may or may not have been through in new ways because that’s fun, interesting, at the very least beneficial? Just because we all know friendship is important doesn’t mean we cannot be reminded in a creative way, or create something to express how important that message is to us even if everyone else already knows it. It’s to share the beauty of the lived experience and embrace that we have all been forced to endure life without being asked.

I’m starting to think a lot of people just don’t enjoy being introspective and thinking anymore and in this state of the U.S. at least and how low the reading levels and critical thinking/comprehension skills are, that’s scary. You don’t have to ponder on all the meanings a story has if that isn’t your cup of tea, ik my autistic ass does enjoy that, but I can still enjoy a brain off experience without negating the deeper meaning everything intrinsically has whether intentional or not. So if you don’t care for a stories message that’s fine but that doesn’t equate it to not having one or harmful to ‘hold stories to that standard of having to have a message’ because it has one whether it wants to or not so what is there to stress or be pressed about?

And again this is also no hate to what this screenshot of text says because it seems to be taken out of context of a passage and so seeing this in only this context inspired a rant because I’ve seen other people (authors and readers alike) have a level of ignorance that I’m describing and then taking things out of context to perpetuate those ideas and it’s infuriating every time.

If this text was describing people having to place ONE message on a story and/or saying if an author didn’t have an initial message than the story is bullshit than fuck that train of thought all the way. But I hate that connotation this gives without that context that if stories have a message then why write stories at all and not just flat out say the message… as if the purpose of a message is to only just be simply stated. As if we live in a world where after someone learns a lesson and states the message of it all we all collectively learn from it and never have to learn it again even for future generations. As if it’s only all about learning the messages and not seeing our own experiences portrayed or understanding the same things in different ways. As if we live in a world that hearing someone go through something or them simply stating their philosophies and what they’ve learned versus experiencing it for ourselves or in a way where we are trying our best to walk in someone else’s shoes is the same thing and has the same effect.

All in all I feel like this is just a way to exempt people specifically readers who enjoy works for the wrong reasons/missing the whole point (for example romanticizing problematic things in books instead of thinking deeper on what the writing/author is actually trying to showcase or toxicities it is inadvertently showcasing, I see this most often in dark romance enjoyers and general booktok) and exempt authors from thinking deeply about their own works which would exempt them from criticism if they inadvertently expose their own limiting/problematic beliefs and world views they were either aware of or unaware of.

Again writing is vulnerable exactly for that reason that it can expose biases, thought patterns, and deeply ingrained problematic ideologies that have become normalized in this very patriarchal and misogynistic world and instead of taking an approach of learning from your own and others writing and reflecting from it, seeing what it exposes about you in order to unlearn things (like the deeply ingrained patriarchal thinking and internalized misogyny we all are conditioned with) we give cop out answers of “it isn’t that deep” “it’s all fictitious so it holds no real weight” or the worst “the author knew all along and is being meta” or some bullshit variation when they clearly weren’t. That’s not to say people shouldn’t write or be scared to write because of hidden problematic ways of thinking and biases they unknowingly uphold being exposed since that is still beneficial to share so others can objectively see it in themselves too, a book is not only taking a reader on a journey and to challenge them but it at the very least should’ve taken the author on the same journey and challenged the author itself while they were writing it and noticing where it took them or showed about them, shared it anyway because they thought it was a beneficial road to encourage others to go down to come out the other side and feel moved, changed, understood or more understanding of others, and yes I believe even the most basic or smuttiest of stories can do that for its respective category/genre. As simple as accepting a sexual interest to as deep and profound and impactful as realizing and/or accepting your own or someone else’s sexuality. This is why reading AND writing/journaling is so encouraged.

I can take this simple concept of a story’s message to underlying problematic messaging and beliefs it can, unknowingly to the author, have and also as (how I slightly went into it there at the end of the previous paragraph) how no matter how simple or unimportant the message/story and its genre may seem, that doesn’t take away how impactful it can be for people so again erasing a story of it’s message and saying stories don’t need or have one if the author doesn’t give it just because cause it can seem limiting to you just seems anti productive and lazy at best and is harmful and invalidating at worst.

Honestly if it seems I lost the plot of what this text was actually trying to say or even my initial point I have had these thoughts bottled up for so long and this gave me at least a start to expressing them. Also my autistic pattern recognition connects things others may not inherently see the connection to.

I am aware that I can be thinking too much, but currently I feel most people are thinking too little about everything even encouraged and applauded for it. For being selectively dense half of the time on purpose so they don’t have to unlearn and challenge their own ways of thinking because it’s easier to not dismantle what we have all grown comfortable and accustomed to as opposed to realizing how most normalized things and systems in place are actually fucked up, often encouraged not to think deeply like that because who benefits from that again? Exactly.