Artists keep childhood alive¹

Translated by: Maria Moiteira

Artists keep childhood alive

How delightful it must be to be an artist. How aware they must be – those who laugh innocently in a reality I call a dream. How free they must be!

They, who deliberately handle this childlike reality and invite us into fantasy, like an eternal warning to the pragmatists who once dared to dream. How delightful it must be to be an artist.

Through the joy of imagination, they highlight forgotten shadows and challenge the world of realists. How can artists understand reality if they live within the illusion of their honest work? How childlike must they be in this act of creation? Children, for they must delight in these tangible dreams – dreams that reality itself allows to be quoted. How free they must be! Responsibility is to punish any altered state of dreaming, which we – the unfortunate ones – call reality, yet artists see as a constant, pure chimera. How aware they must be!

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¹ This sentence arose in a class of Philosophy in Asia, stated by my professor Paulo Borges.