Ubitquitous anger threatens to upend our collective present and our future. In its making as well as its appreciation, art responds as an alternative.
Missiles rain.
Seas rise.
Illness spreads.
Anger rises.
Autumn sun washes trees in gold.
Orange leaves settle like memories.
Acorns skitter and settle, promising trees.
Birds gather, resolved for warmer climes.
Green tea tints steaming water.
Natural rhythms persist even while human players beat drums of threat and peril. Only the most willfully self-absorbed cannot hear the sounds.
Me? I’m sipping tea, thinking.
Unlike the changing of the seasons, the reliability of the dawn, and the promise of stars when night falls, a rising general animus borne of impending multifarious peril springs directly from human behavior. Said another way, many of the challenges we face are products of our own choices, individually and collectively. There are no wars, no depredations of the natural world, no denial of diseases or poverty or pollution, and no out-of-balance allocations of assets and opportunities that arise from naturally occurring pronouncements. Those are all functions of human decisions, big and small.
There are other human choices, too, and in times of struggle I lean on these alternatives for succor. In fact, the more that people present the worst aspects of their great potentials, the more I find myself paying attention to the precise alchemy of poetry. I spend time considering photographs that transcend ordinary visual depictions. I envelope myself in the sensuality of music, the pulse of choreography, even the frozen lyricism of inventive architecture. The more the sound of angry voices rises with the smoke of a burning world, the more I embrace the elan vital of art.
It’s election season, obviously, and while I may claim like a simpleton that I’m embracing art, I’m also paying close attention to the civic world around me. I’m conscious of my quickened pulse, even as I’m also consciously aware that my soul desires a more peaceful pace. No matter what Election Day may bring —and I’m conscious that on whatever date you may be reading there will likely remain massive uncertainties ahead — it would be irresponsible to pretend that the travails of the day can just be ignored. They cannot be ignored. Artists especially cannot avert their eyes, even as the balm of creative work promises a cloak of comparative purpose, or at least meaningful pursuit. To pretend that our collective, human induced problems are not substantial would be to assert an abdication of civic engagement.
But in that engagement, we must not succumb to an abandonment of alternatives. Creative works are almost always shared works. Most people do not create in isolation, nor do they absorb the fruits of creative work in isolation. It is only through acts of creation that we choose to reject the growling threats of division.
I take that as a declaration of optimism in the face of hard evidence to the contrary. I take that as a charge against the gravity of despair. I regard acts of creation as a willful mechanism to forestall easy vilification of those with whom I have disagreements. Why? When we ask each other to consider a work of art—a photo, a song, a poem, a garden—we invite a dialogue, and when we’re in dialogue with each other, it’s harder to scorch the air we’re both breathing.