Here's At Least One Facet Of Finding Your Own Voice

“It’s better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” ~ Herman Melville

The novel is a classic of American literature. The high seas, Moby Dick and Ahab’s quest… and a narrator named Ishmael. Interesting name. Ishmael was Abraham’s son, the one birthed when he attempted to produce an offspring without faith in God. A son conceived with his servant woman. A son conceived illegitimately.

And years later when Isaac, the true product of faith, was born, the animosity between the descendants of Isaac and of Ishmael became a perpetual conflict, still unrelenting.

As for this story, what is the meaning behind Ishmael’s name? Is it a commentary on the futility of Captain Ahab’s insane quest? The pursuit of this great white whale destroys not only Ahab but the lives of nearly everyone involved in the mad mission. So it is that in the wake of Abraham’s actions, finding a means to father a son without God’s aid results in massive suffering and loss of life.

Abraham, according to the book of Genesis, was asked to attempt something impossible. Only God could do this impossible thing. How does that translate into Moby Dick and Captain Ahab? Should Ahab have quit the pursuit and trusted God to beach this great white whale somewhere on an island? Or have it go up a river and get stuck somewhere that it could not turn around as the whale two years ago that got itself in a mess near Sacramento?

If you have not read Moby Dick, it would make a worthy addition to your list sometime. I plowed through it when a literary friend insisted it was the greatest American novel and one of the top twenty of all time. It turned out to be a worthwhile read indeed. (In the past several days this phrase Great American Novel has already been applied to The Grapes of Wrath and The Great Gatsby in The Big Read series I’ve been listening to, so take it with a grain of salt.)

Woody Allen pays tribute to Melville’s masterpiece in the film Zelig. The film is a sparkling demonstration of Allen’s genius. When the main character, Zelig, is undergoing therapy, he confides that he has never ready Melville’s classic, but covered it up in order to “fit in,” the film’s theme (our chameleon nature) and Zelig’s root problem.

In literature and the arts, originality is the great quest. In mathematics and science, the great men are likewise driven by the quest for an original idea. Einstein’s theory of relativity reverberated throughout the culture, the power of an original idea. John Nash, in A Beautiful Mind, is mad with the passion to find and capture his own White Whale without which a Nobel prize is surely out of reach.

Back to Mr. Allen… His film making career is a perfect example of the Melville quote that opened this stream of conscious exploration. His films have repeatedly shown a fluid originality that is uniquely his own. Yet he wasn’t afraid to take chances. Sometimes the comic elements didn’t pan out, and sometimes the medium got the best of him, but when you look at the range of things he attempted, you can see he never settled for imitation or formulaic devices. He made the movies he wished to make and many have been gems with real takeaway value.

The key is finding your own voice, whether as a writer, film maker, economist or just a human being. Who are you and what is your life message?

I used to think that it was the young who need to be dedicated to originality, that youth was a time of exploration. But why limit yourself? As long as you are breathing the mind should be in inquiry mode. Life itself is a creative act. When it ceases to be so, you have ceased from really being alive.

Maybe this was Ahab's fear: To stop pursuing the dream would be to cease from living. He decided not to be a boring old hack story teller at a port town pub reliving the life he once lived. Instead, he mustered all he had and gave it another shot. Winston Churchill put it this way:

“Success is going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

If the dream is worthy, go for it.