{"id":24509,"date":"2020-02-10T12:20:42","date_gmt":"2020-02-10T12:20:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/?p=24509"},"modified":"2020-02-10T12:20:42","modified_gmt":"2020-02-10T12:20:42","slug":"forged-from-struggle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/uncategorized\/forged-from-struggle","title":{"rendered":"Forged from struggle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chaim Potok\u2019s two novels, My Name is Asher Lev<\/em><\/a> and The Gift of Asher Lev<\/em><\/a>, follow the struggle of an artist from the Hasidic Jewish community as he seeks to express the art within him without shattering the relationships he has with his family\u2019s community. In the end he is compelled to paint using an image of suffering that shocks and offends his people, and he has to move away. It is this internal struggle that has prompted the emergence of something considered to be a work of great significance by the art community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The struggle of the artist acting as an incubator for\nmeaningful work is a common theme. A great example of this would be second\nalbum syndrome, which is all too common in music. A band has a dream: one day,\nto be successful. Their early journey is a difficult one, working hard for\nlittle reward, playing small venues in out-of-the-way places, making sacrifices\nfor their dreams and living a wide range of human experiences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their first album is a great success, and the once\ncash-strapped band enter a new world, one where they are praised, earn good\nmoney, get to play bigger venues, and have a much more comfortable life. They start\nmoving in an exclusive world very different to where they have come from. They\nwill also be a lot busier. But they have a second album contracted in 18\nmonths\u2019 time. The new life they lead \u2013 on the road, in more comfortable\nsurroundings \u2013 turns out not to be such a good one for inspiring them to write\ngreat songs. Besides, they are very busy, and they are surrounded by people\nsaying nice things about them. They end up making a poor second album. If they\nare lucky, they\u2019ll get away with it and realize where they have gone wrong, and\nfind new inspiration. If they aren\u2019t, they will end up being yet another band\nwho did a great first album and could never reproduce this success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is comfort and prosperity all that good for any of us, in\nterms of our performance? Do we miss the spice of the struggle? I was once at a\nscientific meeting where one of the participants made a really interesting point:\nbe careful that you don\u2019t achieve your dreams. Have sub-goals, and achieve\nthem, as you work your way towards your dreams. But should you get all the way,\nwhat will you have left to aim for? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Often people struggling for money think that earning more\nmoney will make them happy. For sure, alleviating the struggle brings pleasure,\nbecause poverty can be miserable, and having too little restricts your options\nand causes you to make bad choices. But once you have enough, having more doesn\u2019t\nbring the expected happiness, and the itch to accumulate just gets stronger as\nit is scratched. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some degree of struggle brings meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a narrative that is deeply embedded in the world of\nfine wine. Give a vine what it needs \u2013 adequate water, sunlight, and plenty of\nnutrients in the soil \u2013 and it will grow beautifully but produce only average grapes.\nThe vine needs to struggle, it seems, for it to focus its attention on\nproducing grapes capable of making great wine. How many of the world\u2019s great\nvineyards have beautiful looking vines? The soils tend to be bony, the vines\nhave to fight to survive and yield interesting grapes. It\u2019s an interesting\nmetaphor for life. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chaim Potok\u2019s two novels, My Name is Asher Lev and The Gift of Asher Lev, follow the struggle of an artist from the Hasidic Jewish community as he seeks to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24511,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24509\/revisions\/24511"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}