Rules Rule Us

Sorry, I’ve been trying to get to this comment but ahhh… kiddos, husband speak to me when I’m philosophizing. I can’t concentrate. I either give up sleep and finish philosophizing or I choose to sleep. If I do not sleep, I pay the consequences…health wise… not pretty.

See? My kiddo is taking my phone… be back later

Luce, coming to think of it there are other ways also t0 interpret this. Sorry for being closed minded in my last comment. You were probably talking about mastering the rules to take advantage of them for our benefits, the way we manipulate the rules of nature to our will. All i wanted to say was the subject doesn't leave so mach space to swing but still shows flexibility of mind and spirit if we could do it in such tied space.

Yeah, your second comment is what I meant.

Have you ever written a sonnet?

There’s rule after rule that one must follow. Some rules can be broken without altering the nature of the sonnet while other rules are of vital importance to follow for the sake of conserving that nature.

Ever since I came across form poetry, i noticed that each of the forms have a purpose. So I thought that if I understood the purpose of each of the forms, I could then write them without a problem.

However, I stumbled upon another thought, what determines the purpose of a form poetry? Whoever created that form of poetry must have given it a purpose. But let’s say, a carpenter creates a spoon. The purpose of the spoon is so that we can eat with it specially soup-like dishes. Yet the purpose of the spoon will eventually change depending on whoever holds that spoon or by circumstances rather than by whoever created it. Lets say i am eating a steak that’s too hard to Bite with my front teeth. I tried cutting it into smaller pieces to just toss the cut pieces into my mouth and let my molars do the chewing but all I have is a spoon and my hands. I can try to use the spoon to cut it or use my fingers and hand to try to cut it or use both.. I’m not 100 percent successful cutting it but somehow I managed to eat the hard steak with the help of my teeth, spoon and hands..,Some might say that the task of cutting wasn’t easily accomplished because cutting is not the purpose of the spoon. (Though the purpose of our teeth would be to cut, no? Yet that was affected because of other factors - circumstances. So technically speaking the spoon wasn’t required to begin with but we have given it that purpose.) at the end, the act of eating the steak was accomplished because the three - hands, spoon and teeth worked together… even though the only one with the true purpose of cutting per se was the teeth (who could not cut due to other circumstances)…

See?

ahhh! I lost my train of thought. It’s hard to focus when others are speaking to me. It’s hard to pay attention to the thoughts that come to mind when others are trying to be heard. Sometimes, i just want to listen as if I were just an spectator enjoying a show but sight…

Life is hard like that steak I mentioned… and somehow, we keep on assigning purposes to things that didn’t have those purposes to begin with, and simultaneously, keep making life harder and harder, yet still accomplishing the goal… so we end up satisfied or happy regardless of how hard it was.

Something similar happens with rules. Any kind of rule per se. I just cannot find the words to simplify it. Ironically, i just keep going in loops.

Edited

You cannot change the purpose of spoon by using it for cutting for the lack of having knife. You just bend its purpose to the neighbouring one, only until you find a knife unless you are trapped in an island away from civilization.
You argument is very clever and extremely philosophical about spoon. It reminds me of Heidegger’s Dasein. But you cannot deliver the thought to the end because of the lack of philosophical experience. After, You think by pulling the "rules" to the neighbouring one you change the rule? No you only stretching them, because they (rules) have outmost elasticity and also it is outmost useless or funny to use spoon for knife permanently if you could do otherwise. I say neighbouring one because you cannot cut stake with radio or blanket.
Yes, about the form and comparing them to rules (sonnet specially) you are on the money. See, only the poets who have such authority on the “forms” might break them and get away with it. Your poem somehow going toward that justification of the "rules."
To say "rules" are “forms” is merit as long as the poet "WANTS to follow them, for in the modern poetry you could break any form-rule as you please, or use them partially to your advantage. The modern poetry is all about the context (the essence) of poetry, the real meaning, not the “form” the vessel, in which you present the meaning. It is about inspiration and venturing in the dream world and deal with epiphany instead of euphonies and turning the direction from deep oceanic harmony back to the musical representations and facial harmony. Like in the art of cooking, the presentation is almost as important as the taste, for scoring, but no real chef would ever prefer a good looking average food over a really tasty but messy one. It is a disgrace actually if one do so.
Most of the beautiful Ghazals or sonnets are not as meaningful and pure, poetically, as the some of the formless poems, because only in pure poetry one could really fly without the rejection of objects and forms, and experience close to absolute freedom, without too many constraints and rules to restrict him/her down and change the mood and partially suffocate the inspiration. Though mediocrity always chooses the second ones for they sound better, look glamorous and are more popular and also like big red apples, look nice regardless of if they are not even half as juicy and tasty as the little organic ones with worm often inside them. Eyes are the biggest obstacle of the true minds!!
It is like people who put too much stress on the Grail instead of the quality of the wine or how fancy the cup is, instead of the fineness of the coffee itself.
Watch this in that regard:
https://www.facebook.com/sqnti/videos/1455952091499927

Also it is so difficult to recognize a powerful formless poem with a set of lazy untrained eyes. Not many could understand the space inside poetry has evolved exponentially since the sonnet or ghazal times and gotten way vaster than before.

Thank you

Lol i can see how!