Creativity is a life force that fizzles if neglected. If nurtured, It can become an exacting tutor with high demands met in long periods of solitary pondering. An entire life can be devoted to that activity. Unfortunately, the fruits of such a contemplative life go to the graveyard with parent of the insight. A more satisfying outlet for creativity is through art.
Freud described art as a sublimation of other basic drives, mainly that of sex in the Victorian thinking of his time. But creativity that is indulged can be a battle for control of the driving energy. The battle can be all consuming and the result can be no more than some deep insight. But the sense of relief that comes with the eureka of discover is as liberating as sexual release in a bodily orgasm.
No doubt Newton felt that jolt of a creative payoff when he saw gravity behind an apple falling from a tree to light on the concept of gravity. Einstein must have felt it repeatedly as he zeroed in on E=mc squared. Surely Picasso felt it throughout his life as he saw a growing number of dimensions he tranlated into his paintings. And for sure Mark Twain felt that spark when he noted that the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. That there is the big difference between art and commerce. Art looks for the right word while commerce has constraints.
Those devoted to the arts are exceptional people who have retained the ability to see the world as a child before attention was reined into specialized directions. That perspective is a gestalt view of the world. They see the world as a totality without prejudice for any part. They indulge in the pure joy of the senses. The pragmatics if life take a back seat. For those lucky enough to land in a career that allows for such an innovative voice within its fold, the future is relatively rosy. For those who need to forge their own path, the future is challenging indeed, with commerce as a constant companion.
Fogarassy came of age at a time when writers were supplicants looking for acceptance and space on the pages of respected periodicals and the imprints of major publishers. The SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) was a requisite inclusion with the submitted work. It usually came back with a printed rejection or an encouraging note that said try us again. Rejection was routine and led to a renewed effort to better the craft of writing and aim at the target.
Over the years, Fogarassy’s work has been deemed by editors to be everything from profound to most overwritten ever seen. Those critiques are aptly applicable to a writer thinking in complex Hungarian as expressed in straight-forward English, on who sees the world in the subtleties of an artist with the awareness that the message must be simplified for the pragmatic marketplace. The challenges of Fogarassy’s calling have been monumental. The rewards made the effort more than worthwhile.
Early short works were published in literary magazines such as the Texas Sidewinder and the Canadian Queen’s Quarterly. Two dozen of the short works were published by literary magazines throughout the world when her first novel was published by Quality Publications of Ohio.
Mix Bender is a novel about complex Hungarian-American immigrants meeting on a carefree Caribbean island. “A lively, intriguing and gutsy novel,” wrote international journalist Lydia Ferabee. Other reviewers described the novel as “exhilarating,” “intelligent and entertaining,” and “a fascinating novel of personality, interactions and complex emotions.”
Her non-fiction Mission Improbable: The World Community on a UN Compound in Somalia was enthusiastically received by numerous publishers, including Howard University Press. Even so, only Lexington Books published the work. The US perception of events in Somalia during the intervention was considered too strong to afford any sizable interest in Fogarassy’s first-hand record of events.
Even so, the book was well reviewed by Abdul Rahman Turay of Sierra Leone, head of the UNOSOM Somalia Mission. He said the book set the record straight. The Mission in Somalia was succeeding but nobody in the greater world knew of the success. He said the book was a provocative argument for humanitarian intervention in global cires.
George Parker, head of the Press Section at UN Headquarters in New York, said the work was an accurate and comprehensive view of the Mission. It provided a unique insight into UN operations and shed a remarkable light on the peace the Somalis were trying to achieve after a jump-start from the UN with US help withdrawn just short of the mark.
Among others who expressed support for the views expressed in the book were Richard Holbrooke, Jonathan Howe, Jimmy Carter also on behalf of wife Rosiaynn, Bill Clinton and Anthony Lake. Their views, like those of Fogarassy, are of long-term duration, spanning the inevitable ups and downs of forward progress in mutually beneficial global relations.
Fogarassy’s simultaneously published noves about global relations were the first to enter into the cyber-age. Light of a Destiny Dark about the contrast between the European and American experience of the Second World War era, has been called unrelentingly dark. The Midas Maze about the vast UN global network is a novel in search of an audience. While the mighty United States was the driving force behind the United Nations aimed at preventing another world war after the Second, America has remained complacent about the rest of the world and has has denigrated the diplomatic solution to problems that it first championed.
A global pandemic may have changed that course, particularly under an administration that came to power after the country made great strides as a global leader by electing the western industrialized world’s first non-white head of state. As the world grows global and details merge, differences and similarities become clear. At bottom is the basic human connection.
Nobody anywhere likes to be poor or insignificant. All strive for the maximum impact they can make on the world within their circumstances. Achieving that goal requires a balance of risk and retreat to safety grounded in personal circumstances.
As a writer drive to express her experience of life as encountered, Fogarassy has presented her work to literary and commercial outlets. She has been called profound. She has also been deemed the most over-written writer ever met. The range of views about her work represents not only her stabs at finding her voice and target audience,but also the structural demands of society at large,
The trick today, as throughout history, is to push a personal experience out into the greater world so as to make an impact. Great or small, profound of over-written, the bottom line is to make a mark worthy of the feeling that the mark has been hit. Progress has been made by experiencing life as it presenlf and the experience has been passed on to others through the workds and contacts of a lifetime.
Like all blessings, technology is mixed. It unites the near-200 countries of the world but in doing so it obliterates nuance. It provides a wealth of knowledge but the information is superficial compared to what human wisdom requires. Thanks to technology, world society is speeding. The modulator for this rapid dynamic is the wise leader among myriad cultures able to elevate the respresented people into the global mainstream.
According to common psychological wisdom, humans like all animals are born ignorant and are trained to navigate the world around them by their nurturers. In human, the quality of that nurture varies widely but certain constants prevail.
Humans raised with the ineffable quality of love learn to absorb tech advances with guidance. Along that timeline, they also develop the human qualities that can lead to wisdom, including curiosity, courage to take measured chances and the ability to discern between truth and falsehood.
Mass communication did not start with the tech revolution. It started with Gutenberg back in the 1600’s when he made prints of the Bible it had taken Scholars centuries to transcribe by hand. Mass communication is a phenomenon has evolved through Town Criers, Yellow Journalists and now to Social Media. Communication among the masses of the world calls for a new assessment of the personal need to communicate.
From the first yowl after birth, all humans and animals demand to be heard. The social media have satisfied that need. A tech world need now is to active the editor function through the system developed over time since the Gutenberg Bible.
TMI, too much information is the watchword of the modern sociual media tech world. Control of that runaway Infor Highway train is counseled by historical advisors from a simpler age.
Classical American author Mark Twain made the point succinctly over 150 years ago. He said the difference between the right word and the almost right word was the difference between lightening and the lightening bug.
Based on personal experience and observation of the oputside world, the right word seldom appears fully formed with the first thoughts on a subject. The forum of social media, however, can lead to exchanges that lead to deeper thought.
Significantly enough, the social media of developed countries like the US focus on personal stories, such as the finding of a lost cat. The social media of emerging countries focus on national cries for help in freeing themselves from tyrannies.
Communication across cultures in the world’s near-200 co9untries all speaking different languages is a formidable challenge. It beings with the individual becoming a comfortable part in the home culture and then extending the bounty to those deserving a shot at getting a leg up in a complex world.
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