The Labor of Man

My father was a painter.

I once asked him why he painted. He told me that he had never really enjoyed it. Each painting was an excruciating process. He would close himself into a room and paint, almost continuously, until he had completed his work. He would eat little and sleep little. Hunched over a canvas and palette he would bear great physical pain. Tired muscles, cramped from holding the same [unnatural] pose for hours on end, were only moments [mixed with ounces of will] away from giving completely. Each painting was a challenge. Him against the impossibility of perfection. Each stroke would take him closer, but like the graph of f(x)=1/x desperately outstretched towards an axis, perfection (seeming decievingly within reach) was a cruel goal. The painting would eventually take its final shape and he would emerge from his prision, tired and hungry.

I once told him that I thought that men tortured themselves because they couldn't create life. I told him that men subconciously wished that they could construct something as perfect as another human being. To substitute, they would find these alternate creative outlets; outlets which in some ways simulated the pain of labor. In my father's case, he would create works of art, but the process of doing so was often nearly unbearable. He accepted that he would experience pain so that he could create this near perfect "life." In fact, he seemed to relish the pain. He laughed at me when I told him this.

I later asked him how he felt watching my mother go through labor. Was it hard? He told me he was glad it wasn't him.

My father was kind of an ass.