Let’s Revolt, be creative!
A friend of mine sent me a Ted Talk video. The speaker was talking about how we are a society of consumption and no longer encouraged to create unless we are children or until we reach the age of retirement, when we are expected to settle down and learn to be crafty. The speaker said that our society considered it an indulgence, a little bit selfish and that giving your attention to art before then was a rebellious act. Think about that, creating something beautiful is a rebellion. Writing a quick bit of poetry, a simple line sketch, playing with color, doing a little dance was taking time out from productivity and optimization. Our society is sideling the creative act and robbing us of our attention. We were giving all of our attention to Zukerberg and other corporations.
I remember 7 years ago when I helped my mother get her first Iphone and teaching her how to live stream. I never figured that I would find her sitting in her chair, scrolling through videos, bitching about how they never tell you the movie that the clip she just watched was from. She doesn’t play games, but she does scroll a lot. When I was very young; She taught me to enjoy reading, and gave me the love of art. She still does art, she is working on restoring an antique carousel. She helps design the color and trimmings on the horses so there is continuity on the carousel. She also still reads, books are stacked everywhere in her house. Piled in baskets to go down into her library in the basement, stacked in piles to be filed in her shelves, and stacked next to her bed, living room chair and in her bathroom. You will only ever find her without books once, and it will not be a good day for any of us. The point is, I never expected her to be a phone scroller.
If that is where my world is going to, that art is an indulgence; I am going to give my grandchildren an extravagant life. I don’t want art and creativity to be selfish, I want it to be a requirement. From this day forward, I am actively choosing to revolt (Let’s face it, are you surprised?) I am going to encourage everyone I know to do the same. Be creative is going to be my call to arms! Every time I do something artistic, I will acknowledge an act of rebellion. So, Let’s Revolt; Be Creative! I don’t want to be in a world where being an artist is selfish, let’s normalize taking time out to color in a coloring book again. Spend some money on crayons just so you can smell them and look at the pretty colors. Put them in a desk drawer and let them tempt you to draw a flower on a legal pad of notes. We aren’t setting off bombs here people, just taking back a moment of our time. Who is with Me?