(by Simon Jones)
There's a problem though, sometimes. You come to get inspiration and it's easy to find. The artists are inspirational and so are the activists. The musicians can find the secret chord that David played and even the holy people can make you believe that being holy might matter. Greenbelt's creativity comes from its middle, its beginning and end.
But then. The artists are more artistic than you, and the activists more active. The holy people are holier than you and the comedians are funnier. The musicians play better than you and the poets are more poetic … sometimes, sometimes, it feels as if you can't add anything. Cant contribute, be part of it, join in.
But then and but then. Into this surfeit of excellence walks Billy Childish (a most excellent man). The trouble begins, he says, when people start trying to be successful with their artistic ability. Every artist is trying to get to the point where people applaud their special genius. It's the assumed part of creativity, that it's there to wow people, to impress them.
What rot, he scoffs. What nonsense. Either everyone is special or no one is. How does doing the thing that you're good at tell you anything about yourself? It's the failing that tells you that. It's in the failing that you find, and expand, your limits. It's in the failing that we reveal our true selves to each other, not in the triumph of our successes. Art – and religion, he adds – needs to be more than a cosy nest for the able.
Most days of the week this might be eight parts nonsense. His artistic failures sell quite well, after all. Even Billy knows, one suspects, that if you lined up everything he said against itself it wouldn't really add up. It would fail somewhat.
But today, when confidence leaks away in the face of a festival edifice of impossible achievements, it feels like a welcome corrective. Is the artist the master or the servant? Your skills aren't things to have confidence in, they're things to avoid. Having fewer of them might even mean that you're closer to self-discovery. Having weakness, you can read somewhere, might make you strong.
Fortunately, Greenbelt is full of people who have spent a lot of time failing. It's out there to find. In the meantime, do the thing you're not good at. Fail. Learn. Live a little.
