Deep and Profound?

Hello, ducks!

Been a while since I did one of these off-top of-my-head kind of pieces. Thought I talk about something that has been on my mind for quite some time. What exactly is deep and profound? A lot of artists throughout history have strived to make their art deep and profound. In this day and age it seems like almost every high-ambitional writer and narrative conceptualizer wants their creative works to be this insightful gift to mankind, wether it be on a political, or a spiritual, or intellectual or emotional level.

Everybody would like to be the philosopher. Everybody would like to be the one who KNOWS stuff that other people don’t. Coming down from the mountain to bestow us daily sleepwalkers down on earth the fundamental truths of our existence! When he or she pouts the world shimmers in anticipation!! All this jazz.

By the way, the picture you see above this text is a photo of a piece of Banksy art. Banksy being an England-based street artist who’s true identity remains unconfirmed. I’ve always been fascinated by graffiti art. Felt like a good choice for this article since graffiti is often used by street artists to spread social awareness, quiet effectively in this case I think. Street artists will always be the true foot soldiers of art in my opinion.

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah. Some years ago I had it just hit me that I wanted my stories to be deep and profound. My quest to do so took me into some interesting, creative angles that I’ve taken notes from and implemented in my stories as I tell them now as webcomics. But mostly what I found was me focusing WAY to much on ”the message” of my stories, rather then focusing on the stories themselves. I had some fun with it and I got things from it, so I don’t think it was a waste of time. But I have come to the conclusion that deep and profound isn’t really where I wanna take things, and probably couldn’t anyway without it all turning up all pretentious.

And I think that’s often the case when storytellers try to go for that sort of thing. For example, I like the Matrix, I like that movie’s style, I like its atmosphere and I do find the concept of true reality versus percieved reality to be a good, additional flavour in the mix, all which really helped the movie stand out from all the other sci-fi action flicks that came out in the late 90’s. But it’s particularly in the sequels of that movie that the Wachowski brothers really begins to go off rails with how deep and profound they try to make everything sound and look.

Characters just keeps talking all pseudo-philosophically about stuff that just barely computes with what is going on. Overwritten plot twists and climaxes that you could care less about and that doesn’t even make much sense in the grand scheme of things, that only seems to be there so the Wachowskis can show off have deep and complex they are as creators. Similar thing with Christopher Nolan’s superhero movies. I like The Dark Knight, but yeeeez, thus every, single mayor character in Gotham city have to be an existentialist analytic?

Dialouge upon dialouge like: ”I only have one rule. Tonight you're gonna break your one rule! You can’t just leave things to chance! I’m not, I make my own luck. Some men just wants to watch the world burn.” Alright! Alright! We get it, Chris! You’re a clever man with clever things to tell! Can we please get out of this philosophical poetry jam already and go back to Batman just trying to catch the Joker? Now, that sort of thing can work when used as an effective flavoring agent to the appropriate setting and/or atmosphere, but in these cases that I've just mentioned it is clearly there not to enhance the setting, but to impress the audience.

My idea of something being truly deep and profound is when you’ve made an observation or had an experience, and you’re able to express it to others in a way that gives people this realization about themselves and/or the world around them that they may or may not have had otherwise. Anybody can just take something from any philosophical text and parrot it for the one millionth time in some fashion. Be it from Plato, or Lao Tzu, or Friedrich Nietzsche or from the Bible. That doesn't make anything deep or profound really, it just shows that the creator have spent time reading (or googling).

Now I’m not gonna tell any artist what direction to take, that’s up to each one to figure out on their own. But personally I’m done trying to be deep and profound. I’m 33 years old. I’m getting tired. I don’t have the time or the energy to ponder together something that will raise awareness or lift people to some higher, spiritual trampoline over the swimming pool of our existence. I just want to have fun with what I actually have.

And what I have is a weird, wild imagination. That’s all I need and that’s probably all that will ever come out of me in the end. If anything I create happens to come out as something deep to somebody out there, it’s most likely gonna be by accident. And maybe that’s the best way to make something deep and profound. By simply just doing what you’re good at and have THOSE insights and THAT knowledge come out on its own accord, if it really is there to be found in the first place.

So what are your thoughts, then? What do you, or don’t, consider deep and profound art/storytelling? Do you have any examples of deep and profound done right? Have you ever tried to create anything along those lines?

Comments down below. Just don’t think too hard about it. I love you all.


Helixfinger Out!