I have spent so much time wondering about what makes someone go wow when they witness something. Anything. Maybe a feat of engineering, maybe a drawing or a film or most intriguingly the beautiful sculptures that fill up the ancient temples of India, the ones that have preserved their ability to mystify and enthrall people even after thousands of years
When people look at these sculptures, touch them and feel something stir within them they are surprised and delighted. How is it possible for something thousands of years old, worn down by the ages, abused by the ignorant and crafted by people in a supposedly unenlightened epoch to wield such a strange and powerful influence on the people fortunate enough to behold them today?
When someone struggling to make sense of a life spent in the pursuit of the material, the tangible and the concrete by following the incentives and dictates of the modern educational-industrial complex lays their eyes on a classic they are reminded of something that is missing in the story of their life, the story that they depend on to impose order, meaning and purpose on a reality that is impersonal, complex and too vast to care about the individual.
No matter the suffering, the apparent brutality or the seeming meaninglessness of everything, with the right story life becomes not only just possible, but actually enjoyable. It is man’s gift from God that he has the power to tell himself whatever story he wants. It is the greatest tragedy that so many people perceive this gift as a burden. A perception that morphs the gift into a curse. Of course organized religion, modern corporate life and the inducements of a consumerist society provide a sort of antidote to the problem.
But the power of a story to make you see the world in a beautiful way, in a uniquely human way and the ability of such a perspective to lead people to do difficult but valuable things, things that make the human story even more wonderful, is something that must be appreciated.
Whatever it is that people do, maybe they clean the floor, maybe they draw paintings, maybe they are engineers or doctors or business-men, it doesn’t matter. Every now and then someone comes along who realizes the power of being able to tell a story about themselves, their work, their place in society and their duties. A story made beautiful by the unique and intense moments in their life. A story that appeals to every human emotion in turn. Telling themselves the story as they navigate their life, they create eddies of meaning, purpose and beauty which feed back into the story.
At some point it makes them forget themselves and live life the way a human being was meant to live it. At least for a while. When they wake up from the dream the beautiful consequences of their reverie will surround them. They are reminded of the mythical paradise that was supposed to have been lost to us, forever.
The one where there was no hard-work, no suffering and no pain. Not because there was no danger or discomfort, but because one had the gift of absolute faith in a story. A story powerful enough to distort the reality around oneself and bring it in line with one’s vision.
The craftsmen who possess the gift of great art are the ones who have most fully realized the power of being able to tell a tale that reminds people of this paradise that could exist in the space between reality and their reaction to it. In the realm of perception. Where your beliefs about yourself and your reality matter the most.
The best stories make the most incomprehensible, the most impersonal, the most senseless things beautiful and meaningful to a human being. When people look at their reality in a way that makes sense to them, suddenly, they can understand it, take control of it and manipulate it to their advantage.
The power to craft this story is the most sacred thing ever. The exercise of this power and witnessing the strange and terrifying consequences that follow lie at the source of human fulfillment and happiness. All religions try to capture this magic and project it however weakly into the mind of the average person, in an attempt to prevent the individual from falling into the trap of relentlessly making naive attempts to achieve happiness by running away from pain, from one’s duty to society and from the call to make a sacrifice in service of something bigger than oneself. In order to give everyone a shot at experiencing the sense of satisfaction that can result when you focus on contributing something, however small to the story of human achievement.
But, like everything generic and dumbed down by the incompetence and stupidity of the bureaucrats and the priests the utility of organized systems of creating meaning is highly debatable.
An artist, whatever his chosen profession or his station in life, is someone who is capable of reminding everyone who looks at their work, their life, their actions – however vaguely, however fleetingly, the mysterious and strange power of a great story, not only to make people do the impossible but to make them feel like Gods while doing it. To make them realize what is possible when you look at things the right way, the human way, your way…
Point-Counterpoint 