The Morality and Aesthetics of Cursing

The title of this post sounds like an actual essay.  As always, sorry to disappoint.

Both this post and the next post will be about the play that I just finished writing, of which I mentioned a few days ago.  Of course, this means that the play better be good, or else I'll feel rather dumb for wasting my time on three posts about a play that smells like rotting flesh.  Yikes, that's an unnecessarily gruesome image.  Here I want to talk about what the purpose of cursing is.

Personally, I do not swear.  I have gotten into the terrible habit of saying, "God damnit," which in a way is worse than using curse words, at least within my belief system, but I'm working on it.  The reason I do not swear is that I see no purpose to it whatsoever.  Seriously.  My poetry professor used to always say that italics make no sense in a poem because if you want to emphasize a word or phrase there are other more worthwhile and consistent techniques to do so.  I've come to agree with him fully.  If you want to emphasize your anger, frustration, or shock, or want to show how cool or rebellious you are, then a little curse word should be your last option.  There are numerous other, and better, ways to be who you want to be or to be the emotion that you hope to express.  Namely, you can simply be, in all of who you are, what you are trying to be.  It's that simple.  Thus there is no point in cursing.

The pointlessness of cursing goes a bit further when you believe in God or in the greatness of humanity.  Whenever people ask me why I don't drink alcohol they generally ask if it's for personal or religious reasons; after answering that I don't drink for both personal and religious reasons, some will then ask me what my religious reasons are.  At that point I respond, "If you believe in God then you wouldn't drink alcohol."  Then they say, "What in the world are you talking about?"  Quite simply, unless you drink alcohol only for the taste (which, of course, is never the original reason for why anyone drinks alcohol, so I don't think that anyone can say that their reason for drinking is for the taste), then you are drinking alcohol for a purpose that God should fill in your life.  Want to calm down?  Pray to God and you'll calm down.  Want to loosen up?  Pray to God asking to learn how to loosen up.  Et cetera et cetera.  God is taken out of the equation by drinking alcohol and that, in the religious context, is immoral.

Now you may either be ferociously arguing with me or wondering what alcohol has to do with cursing, or both.  To answer the latter question, however, I say again that instead of cursing one can simply be--be the emotion or person that cursing is meant to portray.  Like with alcohol, if we believe in God and curse instead of being--being through prayer and relationship with God, who can do all things, or so we say we believe--then cursing becomes immoral.  As far as I'm concerned there's no way around this.

As a writer of non-fiction I'll never curse, which is good since non-fiction is mostly what I write.  But as a writer of fiction I must ask whether or not there's ever a time when cursing can be a moral act, or at least an a-moral act.  Is it immoral for me to write, and ask others to say or read, curse words that I do not approve of?  Or can it be moral if the work promotes morality and religiosity?   These questions become pressingly pertinent because there is plenty of swearing in the play that I just finished.

The major reason for including swearing in my play is that one of the characters, and one of the scenes, would not be believable and would not feel real without swearing; and I believe that the play generally does at least point the way to some higher form of living.  So perhaps I have answered in favor of a-morality, but then I have only pushed the question into the field of aesthetics.  Indirectly we can ask whether it's necessary to swear to be funny, but more relevantly I want to ask whether a dose of reality makes a work of art real to the spectator.  Frankly, the answer is no: a good artist makes any work of art "real" to the spectator, no matter what the content.  Besides, as Oscar Wilde said, "Art does not imitate life; life imitates art."  Why, then, must I have my drunk character swearing left and right?

I don't know.  That's it.  I don't know.  Maybe the answer is that we sometimes must seek greatness without a defensible explanation.  But I don't like that answer.  It goes against everything I believe.  Or maybe the answer is that, when we hope to understand why we do what we do, we can only answer, "I don't know."  And that's the life of a writer.

Playwright

I've tried writing plays before but to no avail.  My first two attempts were entirely silly.  I think I wanted to write them so that I wouldn't continue thinking that they were good ideas.  My second two attempts were serious.  By "serious" I mean that I tried hard--they certainly weren't serious plays.  Each play, however, suffered from two vital errors: not having a clear vision of what I was trying to do, and not having a whole lot of experience with the art of writing plays.

In some ways the first error is a result of the second error.  Not in all ways, of course, because a better and more artistic mind than mine could write better plays in the first few tries than I did.  For me, however, as someone who tries not to do or say anything without first thinking of how it fits into my vision, a lack of experience equals a lack of vision.  Obviously talent plays a major role, too, and I came to find that my play-writing skills are not nearly what I had hoped them to be. 

On one hand I want to tell my readers that sometimes it's best to face facts, no matter how depressing it may be, and admit that you are not as good at what you hope to be good at.  Living your life in the light of truth allows you to move on to projects, hobbies, and vocations that suit you better.  Or, living in the light of truth allows you to approach your tasks more creatively, since you will then know that methods a, b, c, and d are out of the question for you.  For instance, I love to paint.  Painting is a means for me to fuel up my creative juices without actually working hard or using my mind.  Still, I'd like to paint canvasses that I can be somewhat proud of despite being absolutely devoid of painting skill and a visual mind.  To produce a painting that I can somewhat enjoy, then, I must steer clear of any form of visual representation no matter how often I think a picture in my mind would make a fun painting.  By experimenting I have ruled out certain methods of painting and can now more creatively attack the canvass with modes of painting that I can actually do something with. 

On the other hand, I don't want my readers to give up.  If you have a dream my prayer is that you will fill yourself with hope and work at that dream.  Unfortunately some of us must tailor our dreams to poverty-stricken realities, but even then dreams are no less worthwhile.  Developing new habits of creativity is one means of not giving up, sure, but we must be careful not to do and think the following: Oh, I'm not good at method a, let's move on to method b; Oh, I'm not good at method b, let's move on to method c; and so on ad infinitum, without ever really working at any one of the methods.  While I subscribe to the saying, "Practice does not make perfect.  Only perfect practice makes perfect," I readily admit, too, that some amount of practice always makes better.  If we don't give ourselves the time and opportunities to improve then we are either dumb, silly, really dumb, or just plain hopeless.  The dual option of facing facts or evolving a new creative approach should only be considered after practice and time have entered the equation.  If after practice and time you still can't balance the equation, then you can move on.

Despite all my egotistical and over-confident bravado, I acknowledge that I, too, need practice and time.  My first four plays all were terrible.  They'll only garner worth if I one day become famous and some deranged fan thinks, "Hey, I want to hoard all the early work of John H.D. Lucy that was such awful crap!"  Now, however, after a long time of stewing and pondering, some conversation with people who know a thing or two about plays, I find that my practice has paid off.  A little, anyway.  I'm now writing a meta-play that is slightly autobiographical that, while not any good at the moment, could be good... when my girlfriend's 6-month old cat decides to get off my paper and pen, or when I finish and return to edit.  Now the cat is sitting on my wrist chewing on my fingers as I try to type.  Even if the play ends in disaster, I have put in the practice and time necessary to improve.  I have improved.  Whether or not I continue to improve may make all the difference.