WITHOUT THE GARGOYLES
EPISODE 030: WITHOUT THE GARGOYLES
In the Middle Ages, churches placed gargoyles on their roofs to remind parishioners of the dangers that awaited them without the church, both then and into eternity. Literally hanging over their heads, the gargoyles kept the faithful, well, faithful, and warded off evil spirits. Most creatives I know, if not most human beings, have voices and negative people in their lives that try to do the same. I say it’s time we chiseled them off. Let’s talk about it.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
In the middle ages, as if people didn’t have enough to worry about, churches took to using gargoyles on the top corners of their roofs. Ostensibly to keep the water from running down the stone walls and wrecking the masonry, the long necks of progressively scarier monsters would form a spout and push the water away from the foundation. But the gargoyle itself served a more sinister function. More concerned about the stonework of the churches than about the mental health of their would-be parishioners, these beasts and demons were a reminder to the flock of the terrors that awaited them outside the church, both now and into eternity. The assumption I assume, was that anything goes when it comes to securing the salvation of a soul, including fear-mongering. The twin to the gargoyle was the grotesque, the latter being almost the same as the former though they didn’t divert water so they could be placed anywhere you could see them, and both served the dual-purpose of keeping God’s children in the church and evil spirits out.
As a metaphor I find the idea of the gargoyle fascinating. What’s it got to do with you and the creative life? I’m David duChemin, and this is Episode 30 of A Beautiful Anarchy, Without the Gargoyles. Let’s talk about it.
Music / Intro
Depending on who you ask, the word gargoyle came either from the French word for throat, the sound of water going down a drainpipe, or the name of a 6th century dragon that terrorized Rouen, eventually subdued with a crucifix by the bishop, St Romanus, before being brought back to Rouen and burned. When the head and neck of the dragon Gargouille refused to surrender to the flames, they did what any reasonable townfolk would do and hung it on the walls of the newly-built church. A warning to other dragons, and evil spirits, and a reminder to all of the dangers of life outside the walls of the church.
Fourteen hundred years later, in a world with fewer dragons, churches have become more subtle in their architectural choices. But I think the gargoyles remain for many of us, hung from the buttresses of our minds, and some very real in the flesh and blood presence of people we should have chiseled off our building a long time ago. And I’m hoping that if we talk about it you won’t feel like you’re the only one that keeps staring up at these reminders of dangers long past that still hang over our heads, threatening us to toe the line, to play it safe, and acting like they’re keeping you from harm when in fact they’re keeping you confined and well-controlled.
I don’t know anyone, I don’t think, that still believes in the possibility of an imminent dragon attack. Those in my life that might still worry about these things have been wisely reluctant to bring it up in conversation. But my god do I know people that are afraid of dangers that are no less able to keep them up at night. And like the original gargoyle, hung from the walls long after the threat had passed, they don’t fade away, nor do we look back at them and think, well thank God that’s over, and move on with our lives. In fact, we see it every time we walk past those walls and are reminded of what we almost lost, what we might lose again, and what exactly we have to fear.
That’s how fear works. The head of the dragon mounted somewhere we see it everyday doesn’t usually relieve our fears, but reinforces them. And though the dragon is long dead, he comes back every day, and keeps us in line. Remember, it wasn’t we who killed it, helpless and running amok like the denizens of Tokyo fleeing before Godzilla. It was St Romanus. And where’s he when we need him?
This is where the metaphor gets pushed beyond the breaking point. Because there are at least 3 lessons in here and I’m not sure which to focus on. The first is that the gargoyles need to be taken down. For the sake of your creative life but also, probably, by your creative life. Many of us are drawn to writing or filmmaking or dance or whatever because it offers an escape from the forces that would otherwise keep us down, but often unaware that our art or craft also has the power to tear the monsters from the wall and to give us the courage to help others do the same.
But the second implication of this story is that it has to be you. St Romanus isn’t coming. We are all the heroes of our own story and it must be you that decides to do and make and act in the face of dangers both real and imagined.
The third implication, to jolt us back to the 21st century, is the reminder that it is only a metaphor and the dragon isn’t real. That only matters if you believe and act as though that is true. When we believe a fiction about ourselves and the world around us, it may have not a grain of truth about it, but believing makes it so, at least to us. Believing the dragons are coming will keep us cowering in our huts and hoping St Romanus, or St George, or whomever else is qualified to vanquish things, is on his way.
For many of us the gargoyles were set on the ramparts years ago. You’re not good enough, you’re not talented enough, you failed once at stuff that was hard, remember that? You and the work of your hands and your heart were dismissed that one time you found the courage to share it with the world. Never again, says the gargoyle. Stay here where it’s safe. Beyond these carefully built walls there lie dragons.
Bullshit. Or maybe not. Maybe there really do lie dragons, and they might be scarier than this whole dodgy metaphor. But it remains yours to slay them, silence them, or ignore them. Or prove them liars. And that brings me to the other gargoyles, the ones that in real life surround you with their negativity and their doubts and whose usefulness in your life is probably vastly over-rated and their welcome over-stayed. So long a part of the architecture of your day-to-day that you can’t really imagine life without them, they might even give you some measure of comfort being there. You wouldn’t be the first person to become familiar with, or even fall in love with your captor. And I don’t want to make this more dramatic than it is, but how long are you going to put up with the negative people in your life? The ones that feign to protect you when they’re the real danger to your spirit, your mind, and the unrealized potential of your life, shortening by the day. The ones that promise that life is better within these walls, that it’s scary out there, that you need them.
They’re not St. Romanus, either. You know that right? It takes an act of extraordinary courage to chisel those people or their influence from your life. That might mean severing ties entirely, it might mean finally having a tough conversation and standing up for your needs and desires and drawing some very real lines in the sand. It might mean finally going to see someone like a counsellor because it is often the case that we ourselves are our own gargoyle and we need someone to help us see that and shake us free.
All of this matters because safety is a myth that keeps you inside the walls, the doors locked by our fears and our comfort, and it's only outside where we live free and able to do our best work uninhibited and liberated from the controls of other voices. It’s there we feel the courage and freedom to explore the ideas that define the best of our work, and to find the flow that leads to the work that is most our own. And it could be that before you find that freedom you need to go find the dragon and pick a fight and that’s scary shit. But it’s not as scary as spending your life in dread of it, locked in a dark building with other people who all share the same fear, when what we need most, what we’ve always needed, was to open the doors wide and let the light in.
I mentioned Godzilla earlier. Have you ever watched those movies? The monster rampaging down the street, squashing people, and kicking cars aside, and the people just keep running in front of the monster. For blocks and blocks or until they get squished. And I’m always watching yelling, no, turn down a side street, get behind it! Stop running in the same direction! And I think that’s what I’m doing with this episode, though without the yelling: pleading with you to duck into an alley so you don’t have to keep running. So you can catch your breath and do something more helpful and more important. Like joining me, with whatever you make or do, in calling others to get out of the way, to stop running. You’ll probably have to get creative in how you do that. And it won’t be easy, or simple. But it will be liberating, not to have the fear and the negativity hanging over your head, and to live your life without the gargoyles.
Music in this episode: Acid Jazz (Kevin Macleod) / CC BY-SA 3.0