Pointless of Art

Driving back home, I always pass right next to a gigantic billboard advertising the next big Hollywood production. This new one, I see is based on a book. I wonder how the author feels. To have their words shouted to the whole world, even if only through a screen. I wonder about the possibilities of the future and how far away I feel from those who have achieved the unthinkable. Even more, I wonder if it’s even a possibility. Maybe this specialness, this influence and impact is reserved solely to those who were born different, destined to be great. I wonder if the pursuit of art is pointless. 

I have always dreamt of something more. A life fulfilled by dreams and ambitions and happiness. For my name to be a synonym of greatness and achievements, for my words to be on the hearts and lips of millions. This does not make me unique. Alas, it just makes me more human. The endless longing for art is something destined for every soul that yearns to be free. This opportunity – so slim and open to so few – to live life merely as a consequence of one’s feelings is a dream stuck in so many hearts. However, its common component does not make it any more accessible. 

To be brave enough to pursue one’s dreams in the arts is to accept that the world does not wish for you to succeed. Their view of talent and worthiness is only destined to the ones who have already made it. They believe that the pursuit of art is nothing more than a hobby, that those who need to study it, and learn it and practice it can never succeed. The main issue with the understanding of “art”, as I see it, is the constant belief that it is only available to a selected – extraordinary and bizarre – few.  No one believes you are going to be different, that you will be able to distinguish yourself from all the others who hope for a chance to show their talent. 

It is possible that they are right, that art is not for everyone. To merely ponder on the specialness of others does not help in the pursuit of your own. The love for art does not necessarily imply a predisposition to do it, understanding and studying it cannot assure anyone the ability to create it. So, why follow it? Why choose the complicated and not always rewarding path of art? 

I believe art has the power to change. To find beauty and feeling in the most mundane part of ourselves, to see and understand each other as something beyond our humanity. Art allows us to fly as far and as high as we wish, freeing us from the constraints of everyday life. Poetry, literature, music, painting. These nourish the big hearts who starve for passion, that seek to be filled by every emotion life has to offer. Greatness and recognition are merely secondary when compared to the chance to truly touch someone. The mere production of any form of art has attached to it a pure uniqueness that can never be matched. Art is love and sorrow and disdain and excitement. To move and to be moved. Art is feeling. Art can never be pointless.