What are the chances of a multiverse, myriad realities next to each other like the bubbles in beer foam? I don’t know about out there, but I suspect we’re living it everyday, each set of human eyes looking out on a slightly different planet. There’s temperament, some set of predilections from a previous life or a unique toss of genes, no one has explained it, and that’s allied with experience, everything that’s ever happened to a person, remembered or not. Their interaction forms a distinct planet inside each person’s head and it’s going to be slightly different from the planets inhabited by family members, and maybe very different for someone across town or totally unrecognizable from that of a person in another country at a different time.
As we intermingle we begin to sense how alone we really are and that our disagreements with others can’t all be explained because they’re too dumb to see the same truth we do. They seem to have their own truth. This engenders an underlying unease, a subliminal terror at losing touch, and nominally free citizens scurry under the skirt of the nearest tribal identity, a sports franchise, a mega-religion or a political party. Business won’t help. They’ve been using our anxieties against us, urging us to huddle next to their brand names and to be loyal to their products, but there’s not much comfort there. Truth be told that’s actually how we wound up in this wretched place to begin with.
Being alone in the universe can be scary. That’s why there’s art. Throughout history art has been used to link up the population and standardize their planets. We’ve been through a difficult period, wars and political assassinations, disease and injustice, crime and climate change, and each of us could use something to hold on to. Art as it’s presented in media these days hasn’t been much help either, the domain of an ultra-wealthy sensibility manifesting an ironical self-loathing, but there’s a groundswell of hometown interest in hometown art under our feet. After a long drought art is being seen in neighborhoods again, and people are finding solace in artwork that celebrates the commonalities and visions they share, on the planet they’d prefer to live on.
As we intermingle we begin to sense how alone we really are and that our disagreements with others can’t all be explained because they’re too dumb to see the same truth we do. They seem to have their own truth. This engenders an underlying unease, a subliminal terror at losing touch, and nominally free citizens scurry under the skirt of the nearest tribal identity, a sports franchise, a mega-religion or a political party. Business won’t help. They’ve been using our anxieties against us, urging us to huddle next to their brand names and to be loyal to their products, but there’s not much comfort there. Truth be told that’s actually how we wound up in this wretched place to begin with.
Being alone in the universe can be scary. That’s why there’s art. Throughout history art has been used to link up the population and standardize their planets. We’ve been through a difficult period, wars and political assassinations, disease and injustice, crime and climate change, and each of us could use something to hold on to. Art as it’s presented in media these days hasn’t been much help either, the domain of an ultra-wealthy sensibility manifesting an ironical self-loathing, but there’s a groundswell of hometown interest in hometown art under our feet. After a long drought art is being seen in neighborhoods again, and people are finding solace in artwork that celebrates the commonalities and visions they share, on the planet they’d prefer to live on.
No comments:
Post a Comment