Responsible Art

There's currently an allegation of racism in an upcoming staging of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book.  I’ve not investigated the matter sufficiently to form an opinion one way or another.  

But I have an opinion about Kipling’s original collection of stories.   When I was a teenager, The Jungle Book was alternately inspiring and comforting to me.  I didn’t care who or what Kipling was.

I've always believed that art should stand on its own merits.  Politics—or political correctness—or how a writer’s life may inform his or her art, only interfere with one’s appreciation of it.  And to analyze works from a different era through the prism of today is a distraction. 

To the extent socially responsible writers self-consciously avoid offending people, they offend their muses.  Responsible art is responsible only to art.  Art has no cause but the honest expression of itself.

A priest once told me he needed an operation, and confided to me that his surgeon could be an atheist for all he’d know or care.  He just wanted the best surgeon available.  That’s how I feel about art.  I want it to be the best available, not the most high-minded. 

Question Authority

We rarely consider the ways we lend authority to others, don’t always perceive we do.  

Certainly there are authorities, governments, churches, team leaders, chairpersons, parents, who command authority.  All derive it ultimately from the consent and acquiescence of the governed.  This is inherently neither good nor bad, but we should consider any authority’s validity.   

Often we grant authority without realizing we are, obey perceived requirements which are no more than someone else’s agenda, authorized only by our submission to it.

When we hesitate to do things on account of what others think, question their authority to prevent us.

“Creative Specialist”: An Oxymoron

Specialist credentials are acquired by repeated masterful performance in a specific area.  Specialists are by nature focused, driven, single-minded.

Creative persons are by nature distracted, craving the next novel experience.  They are by nature generalists, facilitators, able to make connections.  They may have specialized skills, but they’re always looking for new things to do, and however skilled they may be, they invariably aren’t more experienced in a given area than someone who’s devoted their career to that particular specialization.
Creatives thrive in the nether-world of crossover skills.

Typical job posting qualifications call for specialists.  The text of these qualifications will state that they want creative people, willing to turn on a dime with changing circumstances, who are not satisfied with routine assignments.

We live in an era of specialization.  Human Resource departments don't recognize crossover skills.  Regardless what they proclaim, they neither want nor believe they need creative types.

Aging Is Just All Right

"Do you know why women look away when you pass them on the street?"

"Why?"

"Because they're dazzled.  Why wouldn't they fall for you?  Don't you know how extraordinary you are?  Look at yourself, there's so much to see.  The older we get, the more precious we are.  That's what you've missed, you haven't understood that."

"Hadn't thought of it like that, no."

"Think of it that way.  It's the right way, the only way."

─An older man talking to a much older man, from the film, Man on the Train.

One Question

There are many answers.  Some insist there’s just one, for example:  Jesus Christ is the answer.

There are countless questions, but I long ago decided there’s just one:  Why?

An Insight into Inaction

Beginnings

Today is a new beginning.  

Our yesterdays were new beginnings.  Tomorrow, another.  And each day after, new beginnings all.  In a minute, too, another new beginning.  

Each past moment, those old new beginnings?  Gone.  And each future moment is a matter for speculation only.    At this time, this new beginning—this "now"—is all we have.  

So many second chances, piling on, one after one another.  We lose them all, utterly, failing time and again.  I mean we fail, because we can't possibly succeed in any one moment.  Unless we're dodging a bullet... and how often do we walk away unscathed when we dodge bullets?

It's up to each of us to consider this moment as our best chance, to make the most of it, in spite of the odds.