Brianland

Art Is My God

Late on election night November 2024 as the nightmare of America’s choice of ugly over decent became clear, I wrote in my notes — “spend every minute in the world of art.”  And that’s what I’ve done ever since.

You can’t control elections — like you can’t control sports.  I invested a buncha time and energy into the Blue Jays World Series run — only to be let down in the final inning.

Movies, books, music & all the arts aren’t like those things where other people control the outcome.  Art is personal — and your reaction to it is only inside you.

Art doesn’t kill people, it doesn’t divide people, it doesn’t make people hate each other, in fact it makes people love each other, understand each other, appreciate each other.  Vive la différence!  It makes us laugh, feel good, and sometimes even get choked up feeling the love portrayed — and at the passion and honesty and courage the artist conveyed.

Organized religion has long seemed so patently ridiculous to me and is inarguably the cause of so much judgmental hatred and evil in the world — fighting over which fairy tale you think is true.  Art is simply beautiful.  Even if I don’t like something, I never criticize a work of art because I know how hard they are to create.  I don’t pray every day — but I create art every day.  It’s a ritual that connects me to the divine.

Art teaches me to appreciate beauty — and life itself.  A story, words connected together, images, music . . . the unspeakable visions of the individual that then manifest in the real world.  I’ve fallen in love with film late in life because it contains the most art — visuals, stories and music all in one.  But also simply standing in front of a beautiful painting or listening to music with no one else in the room can make you cry or dance.  It’s exhilarating – energizing – inspirational.

A Wall Street Journal writer, Joe Morgenstern, once observed how nowadays cynicism passes for wisdom — but how Paul Thomas Anderson is a counterbalance to that unfortunate truth.  I agree with both sentiments.

Optimism should pass for wisdom.  It’s harder to do.  It’s healthier.  And it’s more beneficial for humanity.  Negativity is easy.  It’s a cheap lazy copout to life’s purpose.  Fuck negativity.  What’s heroic and worthy of admiration is to be positive about life.  And art.  It is energizing to feel and express love.  It’s courageous.  It’s contagious.  It’s empowering.  It’s educational.  It connects you to the soul of what is human.  It makes you tingle to create it … and to experience it.

Joseph Campbell famously said, “Follow your bliss and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”  I like modifying it to “Follow your tingles . . . ”  or “Follow your goosebumps . . .”    Whether you’re home alone making something — or out in the world experiencing something — when your body tingles it’s telling you a truth your rational brain couldn’t.  It’s intuitive.  It’s supernatural.  It’s God speaking to you.  And that’s the voice of God I listen to.

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You might also enjoy The Spilled Coffee Test.

The Spilled Coffee Test

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Or this impromptu interview covers all sorts of empowering thoughts on the importance and practice of creation . . .

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by Brian Hassett

karmacoupon@gmail.com   —  BrianHassett.com

Or here’s my Facebook page if you wanna join in there —

https://www.facebook.com/Brian.Hassett.Canada