Criticism

Recently i was reading an article in Reader's Digest's website about real criticism, it was sort of eye opener to me. It told me what true criticism is made of.

The last part was done by a friend of mine who mentioned to me that Thomas Hardy (one of my favourite novelists) stopped writing novels because of harsh criticism and started to write poetry. In his case it must have been pure jealousy of mediocres or "big nothings".

Why sometimes we use criticism as a weapon of correction only? Its real motto should be pointing out someone's big defects and show him the way of conquering them.

Whats the use of telling a person that "your nose is too big" unless we are paying him for his cosmetic surgery, or he is in modelling and that is the reason he is not getting consignments.

I have worked as a proof reader for almost two years, i loved that job. Fortunately even after that when i read a piece of literature i ignore silly mistakes, because its not my job to point out silly mistakes. If I was a proof reader and that same piece was one of my assignments of the day I certainly would have pointed them out but as it is not ....

I sometimes really observe how different people look at the same thing, give the same piece of poetry to ten people and you will know.. one will say its too mushy, too dreamy; the second will be busy finding out spelling mistakes, third one will be scanning for rhythm, fourth will scan for punctuation faults.. in the process hardly one will absorb the true beauty of the poem. And that one person is luckiest among them.

When we see a flower do we scan for its perfection? Well being born and brought up in homes full of gardens I know, that most of the flowers are defected, by one mean or other, but we love them all. I personally believe that will be the way we should think about the rest of the world. We should try to concentrate on the beauty and ignore petty faults.

Sometimes we should ask the critic inside us to " just shut up and enjoy the world and let us do the same".