Vita brevis

I just finished an excellent, subtle biography of the famous Finnish poet Aila Meriluoto by Panu Rajala (a curiously underrated writer, mainly, I gather, for the reason of having a colourful private life, something clearly to be discouraged among biographers). A curious life - young Meriluoto's rebellion into art, and the subsequent story of life as art, of art as life raises some very interesting, essential questions, public and personal. I have never had such passion: sure, I cannot imagine my life without literature, without poetry, but I don't feel, have never felt, the call of the rough tongued bell in the fashion most artists seem to do, and cannot regret that (despite having seriously tried to). Anyway, a somewhat disrespectful question rises - can art, sometimes, be little wasted on artists, with this at times rather egoistic mixing of the personal, so extreme in Meriluoto's individual case? That initial rebellion, so memorable, white and gold, virginal Ionian cities in flames - seems, to my amateur eyes, somehow purer... A curious story, a curious unconditional life.