A Balance of Choices

    Admist the blue, pale colors of a laptop screen, I sat in placid state unaware of my surroundings. Months ago, I was editing video for a project that I had created for one of my classes. Engaged and engrossed in this world, I stared into the screen, obilvious to the world outside of me. It was my inner world of thought that consumed me. If I was an outsider observing myself, I do not doubt that I probably looked like a comatose lobotomy reciepant, who had a laptop put in front of them so as to have something to look at. While I was most likely unaware of my appearance, much more was going on beneath the surface.
   

    For Bessie Head, author of acclaimed fiction writings and most notably, A Question of Power, describes her semi-autobiographical journey into insanity and restoration. This story, which closely parallels the life of another artist such as Vincent Van Gogh,  shows the depth of intense suffering. This suffering it seems, is related to the powers of creativity. That is, without experiencing the pain and pleasure of life, one cannot truly understand and distinguish the reality or illusion of life. Elizabeth, the main character in Head's book, comes into contact with such a dichotomy. Her experience with the mythical Medusa, strikes a shaking chord within her soul as she realizes the joy and loss of the creative power of a being, "The Medusa was shouting shrill and high: 'You always wanted my power. Now you have felt it."(39) In this revealing sentence, we get a glimpse of what Elizabeth has been pining for her entire life, to be in control of her circumstances. All her life she has felt the horrible sting of pain and suffering. It is in this brief moment of exhiliration and joy, she finds what it is like to experience sheer power.
   

    A common phrase used amoung different cultures, "Power corrupts", seems to hold some truth in many circumstances whether fictional or not. In a sense, the power that Elizabeth experiences from the Medusa transcends the pain of her past life and the life ahead of her that she dreads. But does this power promote a healthy response? Once tasted, Elizabeth's drive for control and conquest over her enemies, real or imagined, begins to eat away at the nature of her soul. Not only is the high of the 'power' experience exhilirating, it is at the same token equally depressing. Head describes this suffocating feeling well, "He caught hold of her hand in mid-air and began stuffing her back into something that felt like a heavy dead sack".(39) This immediate and crushing feeling can be felt easily by the reader through Head's descriptive language.
   

    Perhaps most of us have been in this place of wanting control over our cirucumstances, feeling the weight of life's trials and tribulations. When life throws us a curveball, what would most of us honestly do to survive? Would we go to extreme measures to fulfill our needs and desires at the expense of someone else? Clearly, Elizabeth's character comes into contact with many different people who selfishly act out their soulish drives while others suffer. Most notably is the character Dan, who Elizabeth often sees as an evil man. While observing him, Elizabeth also sees in herself the same despairing qualities that plague the village in Botswana, and on a larger scale humanity. His lunacy and erratic behavior befuddles Elizabeth, but at the same time leaves her with the feeling of strange closeness to such a deprived and vindictive man. It is by her inner qualites which bear resemblence to the man she loathes.
   

    So the question remains, "How does one escape the self-destructive human nature, while at the same time retain a sense of individuality and creative freedom?" This individuality and creativity stem from the very heart of the human soul. The ability to give shape,  and life to nothing can bring out some of the most beautiful moments in human history. But out of the very same soul can come the darkest and most detestable things man has devised. Robert Burton, author of Artists of the Floating World, tangibly explains, "..how she kept afloat when the pressures to sink, to self-destruct, were powerful and intense."(65) So when all of life seems to be crashing down on us, will we reach outside of ourself and help another, or shrink back to the caves of self-despair?