Does Poetry Make Anything Happen?

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Originally Posted by AuntShecky

Why do so few people read poetry today?

Does poetry make anything at all "happen"? If so, what happens. Why? How?

I'm eagerly anticipating a multitude of replies.

Auntie

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It seems to me that Auden was reacting to not only Yeats, but also to other Modernist poets who specifically saw their role as that of New Prophets in a Post-Religious age. Eliot, Pound and others consciously imagined this to be one of their roles. And, of course, it is true that poetry is magical and transcendent, and was often used in magical or religious rituals.

Here’s a similar post-religious question? If there is no God, does prayer “make anything happen”? Of course it does. It just doesn’t make happen what believers claim it can make happen. It makes something else happen. We can't measure what it makes happen, and we can't measure what poetry makes happen, either.

I'm not sure what you mean JC. Can you clarify.

On wordless thought: I distinctly remember one of those heightened moments during a physical game - rugby - where things are happenning fast. There's no time to formulate the thought "I'm going to tackle that bloke" - you just do it as if by instinct. Playing rugby is not an instinctive thing but it utilises instinctive action.

If you have time - only a little time - you can form wordy thoughts about something. You can certainly have momentary wordless experiences such as awe upon seeing a beautiful vista, a piece of art or hearing a tune etc etc. I think we explain it with words after.

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Originally Posted by AuntShecky

Why do so few people read poetry today?

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Probably because the language is difficult to understand.

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Originally Posted by AuntShecky

Does poetry make anything at all "happen"? If so, what happens. Why? How?

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Of course art has some value, otherwise it would not occur. But is the value intrinsic or instrumental? Seems like the debate about art has always been a semantic one – whenever a piece of “art” has had an impact, those that maintain art is useless assert that it was this or that philosophical or what-have-you aspect of the work, not the artistic ones; but then 'useless' is in the very definition of art. I think the proponents of this definition do have a point, though. If we look at architecture, for instance, it is the unnecessary parts (or lack thereof) of the building that give it an artistic identity.

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Originally Posted by Neely

I think to some extent you could argue that written poetry has always been read and appreciated by a select audience, granted it was more popular in the past with the general public.

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If one defines rap as poetry then poetry is more popular than ever.

I think a proper definition of poetry is in order here. Defined in the sense that most academicians would prefer, it would be absurd to expect poetry to be popular. The vernaculars of the classics are difficult to understand in a modern context, thus whatever is expressed becomes less accessible to the layman, unlike rap which employs, to its demographic, a familiar vernacular.

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Originally Posted by JBI

Eliot says it far better than I can at the end of Burnt Norton:

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This reminds me of something from Shakespeare’s sonnet 29:

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate

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Originally Posted by Theunderground

I have read bits of nearly all the great poets east and west,why do you ask?

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probably because Blake is about as deep as a kiddie pool. If one wants religious depth one ought to pick up Milton or Dante.

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

I'm not sure what you mean JC. Can you clarify.

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The idea that poetry, or any art form, replaces experience does not imply it replaces with the experience of the poet (or painter, singer). You relate or react to a piece, because it can find on your the previous experience which have in your memory a similar "feeling taste".

So, when we read poem, we do not have the same feeling or experience of the writer. But it "clicks" on the feelings (all prety basic), which brings us memories, with that our own experience. So can live the feelings similar to your first kiss, but you cannt actually have a first kiss.

A bit like Wordsworth idea of memory and writing poetry. As many things, we can move writing to reading.

Richards' is not talking about the mere act of reading poetry. Of course reading isn't the same as living. But what we read (if we are serious readers) strongly influences how we live, and how we live (if we are serious in this sense as well--that is, well-rounded, emotionally adjusted, intellectually curious, and imaginatively vigorous) strongly influences what we read and how. Poetry is part of the continuum of experience (as you suggest by your reference to culture), but the blind force of culture itself cannot be the sole criterion of value in aesthetic or literary matters (unless we are willing to concede relativistic merit to Hitler's repressive standards of art). It is the epitome of culture with which we ought to concern ourselves, i.e. "the poet" (who is a metonymy for the Artist par excellence). Richards' point is that the poetry of genius is the epitome of experience (from which culture follows). Poets, in his view, are better experiencers, so to speak, than the rest of us, so we should endeavor to be more like them. I admit that this view is shockingly grandiose and strongly suggestive of displaced religious sentiment (e.g. "be like Christ"), but I find it refreshing and stimulating despite its superlatives. These sentiments were the foundation on which academic English was originally constructed, until French structuralist theories "deconstructed" the edifice of humanism and gave us postmodernism. I personally see more cutting edge potential in a return to the old school humanism of our grandfathers than in the tedious identity politics of "cultural studies" and "postcolonialism."

Hulme referred to Romanticism as "spilt religion." But Richards, Leavis, et al. weren't so far off the mark. Pejorative implications aside, poetry is in many ways akin to religion. There is an argument to be made here, although I doubt it would be very popular in the secular humanities. For one, the language of poetry and the language of religion have much in common. Most noticably, they both tend to work metaphor in a degree unparalleled by other discourses, and, arguably, they both privilege the emotive dimension of language over its referential or strictly propositional dimension. Where Richards and Leavis might have said they both chiefly concern the complex expression of feeling, a postmodernist might say they both privilege the signifier over the signified: "In the beginning was the Word."

What are we doing when we read poetry, or any serious literature for that matter, and how does it resemble or differ from what we do when we read scripture (assuming that we read it, or that we used to read it)? This isn't a question for everyone, I admit, but you don't have to be religious to look into it. I used to read the Bible as Truth, but now I only read it as literature. Though, I have enormous difficulty stating exactly what this distinction implies, hence my question.

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Originally Posted by JCamilo

The idea that poetry, or any art form, replaces experience does not imply it replaces with the experience of the poet (or painter, singer). You relate or react to a piece, because it can find on your the previous experience which have in your memory a similar "feeling taste".

So, when we read poem, we do not have the same feeling or experience of the writer. But it "clicks" on the feelings (all prety basic), which brings us memories, with that our own experience. So can live the feelings similar to your first kiss, but you cannt actually have a first kiss.

A bit like Wordsworth idea of memory and writing poetry. As many things, we can move writing to reading.

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I see and agree with that. Thanks.

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Originally Posted by Ezekiel 4:9

Richards' is not talking about the mere act of reading poetry. Of course reading isn't the same as living. But what we read (if we are serious readers) strongly influences how we live, and how we live (if we are serious in this sense as well--that is, well-rounded, emotionally adjusted, intellectually curious, and imaginatively vigorous) strongly influences what we read and how. Poetry is part of the continuum of experience (as you suggest by your reference to culture), but the blind force of culture itself cannot be the sole criterion of value in aesthetic or literary matters (unless we are willing to concede relativistic merit to Hitler's repressive standards of art). It is the epitome of culture with which we ought to concern ourselves, i.e. "the poet" (who is a metonymy for the Artist par excellence). Richards' point is that the poetry of genius is the epitome of experience (from which culture follows). Poets, in his view, are better experiencers, so to speak, than the rest of us, so we should endeavor to be more like them. I admit that this view is shockingly grandiose and strongly suggestive of displaced religious sentiment (e.g. "be like Christ"), but I find it refreshing and stimulating despite its superlatives. These sentiments were the foundation on which academic English was originally constructed, until French structuralist theories "deconstructed" the edifice of humanism and gave us postmodernism. I personally see more cutting edge potential in a return to the old school humanism of our grandfathers than in the tedious identity politics of "cultural studies" and "postcolonialism."

Hulme referred to Romanticism as "spilt religion." But Richards, Leavis, et al. weren't so far off the mark. Pejorative implications aside, poetry is in many ways akin to religion. There is an argument to be made here, although I doubt it would be very popular in the secular humanities. For one, the language of poetry and the language of religion have much in common. Most noticably, they both tend to work metaphor in a degree unparalleled by other discourses, and, arguably, they both privilege the emotive dimension of language over its referential or strictly propositional dimension. Where Richards and Leavis might have said they both chiefly concern the complex expression of feeling, a postmodernist might say they both privilege the signifier over the signified: "In the beginning was the Word."

What are we doing when we read poetry, or any serious literature for that matter, and how does it resemble or differ from what we do when we read scripture (assuming that we read it, or that we used to read it)? This isn't a question for everyone, I admit, but you don't have to be religious to look into it. I used to read the Bible as Truth, but now I only read it as literature. Though, I have enormous difficulty stating exactly what this distinction implies, hence my question.

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I see reading poetry, and the experience of it as much more reflective upon past experiences, rather than instilling a sense of action/ purpose / direction in life. I think these could be fulfilled better with religion and/or politics. Interestingly, you refer to poetry as using religious language, but politics also does. I'm thinking in particular of communism as manifest in Russia, which employed a religious language to poitical ends.

The quran i have read in its original arabic and it makes dante and Milton seem lightweight. Still most poetry seems conceptual idolatry and garallousness.

Garrulousness? I would think poetry would be the opposite of garrulous -- succinct and to the point. I'll grant that I've never read the quran in the original arabic, though, so I might be wrong.

"One can't
have it

both ways
and both

ways is
the only

way I
want it."
— A.R. Ammons

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Originally Posted by Theunderground

The quran i have read in its original arabic and it makes dante and Milton seem lightweight. Still most poetry seems conceptual idolatry and garallousness.

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Paradise Lost was an attack on idolatry. Also certain parts of the Comedy can be construed as endorsing an allegorical understanding of the Bible. I can believe that the Koran, just as the Bible, is arguably a deeper piece of literature than both (still, Paradise Lost was written as an intentional challenge to the Bible, and I would place it above) - notwithstanding, Blake is still a kindergartner, and, when compared to these religious texts, even more lightweight.

I open to new things,if anybody can show me a profound poem by a poet i will gladly have a read.
As it is im not impressed by any epics or sonnets. (though to think again,Heine has some great little flighty poems.)
Now shakespeares' Hamlet? A more profound piece of literature i have never come across in my life,nor anything close.

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Originally Posted by AuntShecky

W.H. Auden, one of the greatest poets of the century just past, wrote the gorgeous elegy "In Memory of W.B. Yeats"published a year after Yeats's death in January, 1939.

A fragment of a line in that poem reads:
"For poetry makes nothing happen. . ."

I read that line twice yesterday: in the morning when I was looking for models of elegies and later yesterday afternoon in an article on Slate.com. (By the bye, the author of the Slate article misattributed the line to Ezra Pound.)

Anyway, I wonder if our brilliant LitNetters might discuss their thoughts on of Auden's poetic statement.

Do you think poetry matters at all? Does it matter to anyone other than people who think they write poetry or actual readers of poetry, the number of the latter alas considerably smaller than the latter.

Why do so few people read poetry today?

Does poetry make anything at all "happen"? If so, what happens. Why? How?

I'm eagerly anticipating a multitude of replies.

Auntie

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Poetry, if the reader understands it, provides a new way of looking at a subject. It doesn't make something happen. It reveals a new perspective on a subject that influences a person into creating a change in his/her life.

You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.

According to Auden, poetry is “a way of happening, a mouth”. Prose can be translated or paraphrased, because the meaning is in the conventional meanings of the words and sentences. Poetry cannot be paraphrased. Once, Robert Frost was flirting with a young girl over dinner. “I like your new poem, Mr. Frost,” she gushed. “But what does it mean?”

“Do you want me to say it over again in worser English,” snarled Frost.

But of course poetry does make things happen. Although the weather and madness of Ireland may not be subject to its spells, when someone writes a poem he creates something new – a pattern of words upon the previously blank page or a pattern of sound waves in previously still air. Surely that’s “something”.

As I said earlier, perhaps Auden was referring to the conscious effort of Yeats and other Modern Poets to be the new prophets of a post-religious age. That didn’t happen. But just because what was MEANT to happened failed to happen, we cannot assume that “nothing” happened.

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Originally Posted by Ecurb

Y


But of course poetry does make things happen. Although the weather and madness of Ireland may not be subject to its spells, when someone writes a poem he creates something new – a pattern of words upon the previously blank page or a pattern of sound waves in previously still air. Surely that’s “something”.

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I doubt if that was what was meant by the OP. It's like saying today causes tomorrow. I interpreted it to mean in an external sense -on top of what it does to those of us who read poetry.

I think poetry might serve a particular emotional purpose - which makes it different to the purposes of reading novels. It's more like listening to music but with words and ideas re-examined or subjects framed in a new perspectve.

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

I doubt if that was what was meant by the OP. It's like saying today causes tomorrow. I interpreted it to mean in an external sense -on top of what it does to those of us who read poetry.

I think poetry might serve a particular emotional purpose - which makes it different to the purposes of reading novels. It's more like listening to music but with words and ideas re-examined or subjects framed in a new perspectve.

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Of course that's not what Auden meant -- that's why I quoted the whole stanza of the poem to clarify his meaning. "Ireland has her madness and her weather still." So Auden is saying that poetry is not a magical incantation that can make physical events happen. It can't change the weather ("Rain, rain go away, come again some other day" doesn't work). I was just pointing out that there are other ways (some psychological, but others, which I mentioned, merely prosaic and physical) in which poetry clearly does make things happen.

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Originally Posted by Ecurb

Of course that's not what Auden meant -- that's why I quoted the whole stanza of the poem to clarify his meaning. "Ireland has her madness and her weather still." So Auden is saying that poetry is not a magical incantation that can make physical events happen. It can't change the weather ("Rain, rain go away, come again some other day" doesn't work). I was just pointing out that there are other ways (some psychological, but others, which I mentioned, merely prosaic and physical) in which poetry clearly does make things happen.

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I see. You mean that despite the failure to achieve the original purpose, there were cultural repecussions that occurred because of the attempt?

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Originally Posted by Theunderground

Now shakespeares' Hamlet? A more profound piece of literature i have never come across in my life,nor anything close.

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Well, in that, many of us are the same.

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Originally Posted by MessyRoom

Poetry, if the reader understands it, provides a new way of looking at a subject. It doesn't make something happen. It reveals a new perspective on a subject that influences a person into creating a change in his/her life.

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Is not an "influence" a happening? Then, since poetry influences us, it makes something happen.

On a coherence theory, at any rate, politics is bad poetry, and so it religion in many respects.

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Originally Posted by Theunderground

I open to new things,if anybody can show me a profound poem by a poet i will gladly have a read.

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Profound in what sense? I think if you're looking for the same kind of philosophical or religious profundity that you gain from philosophical or religious texts then you're after the wrong kind of profundity. Not that great thought can't be expressed in poetry, but rather I find poetry's at it's most profound when it's capturing those small moments that tend to escape the grandest prose, plays, and religious texts. I've read Lycidas at least 100 times, and I still find myself tearing up at the end. I still don't know why, either. The aesthetic, intellectual, sensuous, emotional odyssey it takes me on in such a short span (really, little more than a few songs' length if you're reading at a normal pace) is simply extraordinary. If that's not profundity, I don't know what is.

I mean profound in the sense that it 'moves' me,not in an intellectual or necessarily philosophical sense but emotionally. Hamlet being the perfect example. I find that i very rarely get this from 'normal' poetry but more often in plays and prose. (eg notes from the underground.)

Then I guess it's really just a personal thing. Very little art moves me deeply, but I can name works in all mediums that have for a variety of different reasons. I might say that, in general, plays, prose, films,--narratives and fiction in general--moves me more frequently than non-narrative/fictional work does, including painting, photography, and poetry. Yet I turn to the latter because they also offer things that I don't get from the vast majority of fictional art. As I said, I think poetry is better at capturing the beauty, feeling, aesthetics of small moments and more abstract experiences of life when compared to fiction. Even Shakespeare, whom is far-and-away my favorite writer that I idolize, I think more of as a writer of fiction than as a poet, mainly because most of his "poetry" is serving a larger purpose in the realm of his plays' fictions. The pleasures that Milton offers in his short, non-narrative works can't be found in Shakespeare's plays, and vice versa. In the realm of film, I wouldn't want to be without the "poetry" of Stan Brakhage or the supreme narrative craftsmanship of Hitchcock. That's why I think poetry and the fictional arts compliment each other so well.

People, this forum is a waste of everyone's time. No one is interested in what anyone else has to say. Literature networks are very much like graduate seminars in which students try to impress their peers rather than converse with them. The study of literature is essentially a solitary activity, which explains why people instinctually regard others' insight as an annoying intrusion. Now be annoying and disagree with me!

Nope, you did waste my time quite well.

I'll be polite not waste anyone's time by digressing from the OP's question, "Does poetry make anything happen?" Yes, poetry makes things happen. I know because poetry makes things happen in my life. I read it, think about it, understand it, and share it. This is the lighter side of poetry. But does poetry, do something bigger, like move humanity toward finding world peace? I know it does, because it helps shape thought and philosophy from an emotional vantage point. Isn't deep-seeded knowledge our greatest tool when we seek a positive place of advantage?

Wikipedia - Humanities:

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The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural science.

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"Does Poetry Make Anything Happen?"

IMHO:
Poetry, as all literature does, evolves. Poetry pushes, prods, and kneads language linguistically, phonemically, and artistically in the present sense.

Poetry is evocative (from thefreedictionary.com: (adjective); expressive, moving, striking, revealing, pointed, pregnant, vivid, meaningful, poignant, eloquent, indicative, suggestive.

The study of poetry can fire the imagination to times past unlike an history book can; and allow one to explore other realities, or sensibilities.

IMHO.

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

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Originally Posted by Ezekiel 4:9

People, this forum is a waste of everyone's time. No one is interested in what anyone else has to say. Literature networks are very much like graduate seminars in which students try to impress their peers rather than converse with them. The study of literature is essentially a solitary activity, which explains why people instinctually regard others' insight as an annoying intrusion. Now be annoying and disagree with me!

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True enough. I've been posting on this forum since October and I've never
been recipient to one response, the discussion simply floats up over my posts
indifferently. Taxing as that can be when a participant, that manner of posting
is fairly enlightening (sometimes) when an observer.

In response to the question posed: 'Does poetry make anything happen?'

Yes, it does. But nor is Auden incorrect.

i think poetry makes "something" happen but not anything

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Originally Posted by Ezekiel 4:9

People, this forum is a waste of everyone's time. No one is interested in what anyone else has to say. Literature networks are very much like graduate seminars in which students try to impress their peers rather than converse with them. The study of literature is essentially a solitary activity, which explains why people instinctually regard others' insight as an annoying intrusion. Now be annoying and disagree with me!

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Well, there are only three things one can do with books-- read them, talk about them, or, as the original Ezekiel did, eat them!

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Originally Posted by AuntShecky

Well, there are only three things one can do with books-- read them, talk about them, or, as the original Ezekiel did, eat them!

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There is a fourth if you are bereft of a certain paper.

It is like asking whether The Iliad, The Odessey, The Mahabharata and The Ramayana influenced and shaped human minds and caused things happen or not. Poetry do influence people and do cause things to happen in the long run. In fact they mould the national mind and character without which history, the record of happenings, never occure. Poetry is the moving force that makes the human mind kinetic enough to initiate and make things happen. There is no use denying the impact and influence of powerful poetry on human minds forcing him into action by parading before his intellect excellent examples of similar actions happened in the past. Let powerless and weak poems remain there as inert as the minds of those who created them. But we have in lterary history before us to cite thousands of powerful poems in almost all ages and in almost all languages which stormed people and brought about slow and steady strings of incidents culminating in their final attainment of objectives and fulfillment of mission. As a simple example we shall take the example of the poems written by Alexander Pope while living in London.

Being born a Catholic in the Protestant England he and his people were forbidden to live in London city and was liable for paying a double taxation. To combat these social handicaps and also his physical handicaps from a series of diseases, he possed more than the courage of a lion, which reflected well in his poetry, which were actually acrimonious attacks on his society. We now know whether those ill practices and inhuman legislations of the society in his times still stays there or have been forced to be flown to the Thames, and within how many years. Poets, many of them far high-calibred and cunning visionaries than the ordinary statesmen, law makers and petty politicians, are not day dreamers but determined intellectuals who are determined enough to forcefully make things happen and bring about changes. Pointing out more such examples from other cities, countries and ages alone would make this discussion creative.

It can and does move peoples emotions. what more do you want from art?

Well, yes, it does, according to a friend of mine who used to swear that a sufficiently grave rendition of 'To His Coy Mistress' would make Eng Lit undergrads sleep with you.

Al Purdy

AT THE QUINTE HOTEL

I am drinking
I am drinking beer with yellow flowers
in underground sunlight
and you can see that I am a sensitive man
And I notice that the bartender is a sensitive man too
so I tell him about his beer
I tell him the beer he draws
is half fart and half yellow horse piss
and all wonderful yellow flowers
But the bartender is not quite
so sensitive as I supposed he was
the way he looks at me now
and does not appreciate my exquisite analogy
Over in one corner two guys
are quietly making love
in the brief prelude to infinity
Opposite them a peculiar fight
enables the drinkers to lay aside
their comic books and watch with interest
as I watch with interest
A wiry little man slugs another guy
then tracks him bleeding into the toilet
and slugs him to the floor again
with ugly red flowers on the tile
three minutes later he roosters over
to the table where his drunk friend sits
with another friend and slugs both
of em ***-over-electric-kettle
so I have to walk around
on my way for a piss
Now I am a sensitive man
so I say to him mildly as hell
"You shouldn'ta knocked over that good beer
with them beautiful flowers in it"
So he says to me "Come on"
So I Come On
like a rabbit with weak kidneys I guess
like a yellow streak charging
on flower power I suppose
& knock the **** outa him & sit on him
(he is a little guy)
and say reprovingly
"Violence will get you nowhere this time chum
Now you take me
I am a sensitive man
and would you believe I write poems?"
But I could see the doubt in his upside down face
in fact in all the faces
"What kind of poems?"
"Flower poems"
"So tell us a poem"
I got off the little guy reluctantly
for he was comfortable
and told them this poem
They crowded around me with tears
in their eyes and wrung my hands feelingly
for my pockets for
it was a heart-warming moment for Literature
and moved by the demonstrable effect
of great Art and the brotherhood of people I remarked
"the poem oughta be worth some beer"
It was a mistake of terminology
for silence came
and it was brought home to me in the tavern
that poems will not really buy beers or flowers
or a goddam thing
and I was sad
for I am a sensitive man.

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Originally Posted by MarkBastable

Well, yes, it does, according to a friend of mine who used to swear that a sufficiently grave rendition of 'To His Coy Mistress' would make Eng Lit undergrads sleep with you.

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I've been able to recite "To His Coy Mistress" by heart for several decades now, and I can assure you that your friend is lying to you.

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Originally Posted by Ecurb

I've been able to recite "To His Coy Mistress" by heart for several decades now, and I can assure you that your friend is lying to you.

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Jane Austen (who shares our birthday,Mark) chips in. Mrs. Bennet is speaking:

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"When she (Jane) was only fifteen, there was a gentleman at my brother Gardiner's in town so much in love with her that my sister-in-law was sure he would make her an offer before we came away. But, however, he did not. Perhaps he thought her too young. However, he wrote some verses on her, and very pretty they were."

"And so ended his affection," said Elizabeth impatiently. "There has been many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!"

"I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love," said Darcy.

"Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away."

Darcy only smiled; and the general pause which ensued made Elizabeth tremble lest her mother should be exposing herself again.

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Originally Posted by Theunderground

It can and does move peoples emotions. what more do you want from art?

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Rather than merely validating "peoples emotions" {sic} as if they were parking tickets, I do want more, for starters:

--invent, reinvent, transform, "charge" language

--stimulate the intellect

--force me to look at the world in an entirely new way

--challenge my prejudices and that of the status quo

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Originally Posted by Ecurb

I've been able to recite "To His Coy Mistress" by heart for several decades now, and I can assure you that your friend is lying to you.

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Well, I tried it a coupla times and it worked for me more often than not.

(This was several birthdays back, admittedly. Also, as you mention it - and besides Austen - Beethoven, Coward, Arthur C Clarke, Kandinsksy, one of the beardy ones in ZZTop and an Abba guy who may or may not have had a beard.)

All those items you want from poetry like changing the status quo etc, start from first moving the emotions. Or do you want to change things feeling cold and uninspired?