Defining Art

While working on the notation for some of my own music, I found myself thinking back on the history of music throughout the last century in the western societies and nations over time.

For those who don't know about it (and I would not be surprised if there were many people who didn't know about this; I didn't until I took a class on music and art history throughout the last seven decades), around most of the last century for artists of many kinds was filled with quarrels and disputes over the idea that Art has been following a natural progression and development.

This is something that, unfortunately, still persists in some small forms today.  You may find that some professors, performers, or practitioners of music composition, for example, will proclaim that one kind of Artistic style of making and scoring music is the sole and only most 'evolved' form of music notation and sound.  They might then point to a few, or even several, artists preceding them, who drew inspiration from classical composers, musicians, and renowned notation writers, and decided to try to advance the tradition of artistic expression in music by trying something that had never been done before, while building upon selective ideas from older music theory.

With some of these people, there will be a tendency to proclaim that many other ways of 'advancing' the development and progression of music are not worthwhile - and therefore, should not be studied or practiced.  Sometimes, a limiting and elitist behavior evolves out of the belief that music itself is 'progressing' and 'realizing' a 'greater' form.  And this happened not just with music composition, or music in general, but all manner of artistic expressions.

Many may call me wrong for saying this, but I don't think that this is often the point of Art itself...especially for many of the people who engage in performing, composing, playing, painting, sculpting, crafting, and any other form of creating.  And not being able to shake this feeling from myself - this feeling that people of that time were approaching Art too narrowly, and boxing it into a singular idea - I decided to try and type my thoughts on what, exactly, I conceive Art to be, up onto my screen.  I hope some find it to be re-affirming:

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Art is not defined solely by the combination of influences that affect the process of creation; and the method of creation does not define the result, or how it is received.

Art is also not defined by the way that people receive any artistic performance, product, or creation; many people choose to receive art favorably or unfavorably based off of their mood, their day's events, their beliefs, and the influence of events from throughout their whole life.

And, Art, in its most general sense, is not something that follows any particular, physically observable procedure; when we compare all of the art styles and practices in the world, I will argue, we find that they are without any concrete element in common.

In fact, I believe that what defines true Art, in the broadest sense, is its brilliant tendency to avoid having being tied down to the point where someone can say "This pattern - this, right here, is the thing that all art has in common!"

Art is defined by the pattern it has of avoiding being defined by any other pattern.  Its defining pattern is being free!

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So, as I believe with humans, so too I believe with their creations - that art and people both are naturally defined by a love for something that is free, unlimited, and allows for the emergence of new and unanticipated things into this reality.

What Defines Humanity

I have often asked the question, as an echo of other's curiosity, 'What is a human?  Is there anything that defines us - a single trait or characteristic?' And today, I sat with that question, and something came.

'If the birds can build nests and raise their children to point
Where they are confident and ready to fly from the top of the trees - sometimes without any fear;

If the bees and the ants can work together in massive number
To construct and design complex hives and miniature caverns for their survival;

If the flowering plants can bloom with vibrant color and sweet, vital nectar
Dedicated to feeding the pollinating insects of the wild plains and woods;

If the dolphins and the whales of the oceans can speak to one another through language
In spite of the dark water's depths, and still recognize one another's emotions through sound alone;

If the Great Barrier Reef's coral structures have grown thanks to microscopic organisms' persistence,
By adding under two inches a year to each coral structure - and the reef can still be seen from space;

If a colony of quaking aspen trees, named Pando, can exist and share a single root system,
That can be estimated to have lived and grown individual tree trunks without dying for over eighty-thousand years;

 - And!

If the chimpanzees of African forests can create tools from the natural materials that surround them,
That they can use to enrich their own survival and their own quality of life...

...Why, exactly, do we get away with assuming that we are not just unique, but also special, for our parenting, for our social systems, for our art, for our language, for our structures and our drive to create, for our pursuit of a better and longer lifetime, or even for our tools, our innovation, and our affected quality of life...?'

So, I had to recognize that, no, none of these qualities are solely unique to people; none of these are ideas that define of what it means to be human.

I would say that even selfless compassion is not defining of the human.  Let's face it: we didn't develop any of these skills before our siblings and ancestors in the tree of life did; we're rather new to the scene, and the vast majority of them are not as new, if they can be described as new whatsoever.  No; we may have picked some of these up without knowing about them - perhaps, by dreaming of them, and by imagining them - but we have not created anything there that is so 'new' and 'unique' on such a basic level.

One thing that I do think is so unique about us, about Humanity, is the fact that we have had the opportunity to develop, hone, and master more skills and traits that can be used to sustain life than any other being on this planet has ever had the opportunity to do.

Our power and giftedness lies not in being unique through any one trait or single piece of knowledge; instead, it lies, in part, in the body of knowledge that we share as a whole people.  Through experimentation and experiences driven by a deep feeling of curiosity, we learn about the world - and our learning and our discoveries, we share with each other to benefit the greater human whole.  And in turn, we use the knowledge that we gain to improve our own lives, and the places in which we live out our lives.

But the focus of our work does not always stop at us; some people, if not many people, are called to expand beyond what affects their individual selves.  They work to improve their own life conditions, certainly - but, for any number of reasons, feel a call to move and continue to improve, to add onto, to serve and to better the world in which they live in some way.

Perhaps this is because the knowledge they have been handed down by past generations over time helps them to see that everything contributes to the environments in which and part of humanity lives; perhaps it is because there is something innate in the human that drives the human to perform actions based in a metaphysical concept and reality that is expressed through words like "kindness" and "compassion," "love" and "respect."

Or, perhaps both of these are true.  Perhaps some - or many - people come to the understanding that their drive to see a more improved world can be filled, and fulfilled, by acting on what they have learned about how they are a part of the world in which they live.  Perhaps, by learning about the natural and diverse, different relationships between people and other beings and things, many people come to realize that their positive impact on one part of the world can help to amplify the lives of others.

Now, I feel that I have to revisit my statement above; I don't think it is solely what we learn, in the form of skills and traits and knowledge, that makes us unique.  This other idea - the idea of choosing to improve some part, if not every part, of the world - is something else that I think also helps to define Humanity.

And that reoccurring choice - to better our selves and to do our best to better other people, places, things, and beings - may be my favorite defining feature out of all the features that help me to understand what it means to be Human.

For All

What is that song that is sung in the dark
That lifts the hearts of living beings
Even in the harshest hours of their lives?

What is the dance that moves the spirits
Of those under the burden of others' condemnations
To turn, and transform, our struggles into the strength to protect others?

Whose hands are those that form the cup
That gather our stinging tears and sorrows
And pour them out to water the plants that bare medicines for our scars?

What is Light?

What is Transformation?

What is Medicine?

And how do they make that which is painful, stifling, and harsh
Change in such a way so as to bring something greater, something better
Into being?

Every day, these questions are asked
In many ways, and many forms
By many people, and many things.

They are not always answered.

Yet those who ask them do not once collectively yield
In the search for answers that work best
For the need for healing, for change, for light and transformation is real.

"This search matters," they say to each other.

"All of these living beings that I see in strife -
For them, this search matters
More than anything I can make plain with words alone."

And so, life searches, and searches, and searches, and searches...
Every thing, every place, every instant without yielding
Until it finds what it will always innately desire:

True, unbound, unlimited, and undisturbed happiness for all.