Creation

If you hang out on any of my morning streams, you’ll know that I have a tendency to go off on rants about the status of the arts in modern western society.

About the fact that the arts, and the people who engage in them (or worse, make them a career) are seen as “lesser than”.

Look at what the first classes are to have their funding cut in schools?

(Then look at society what’s most likely to gets its funding cut—education in general, but that’s another rant)

Look at what the big tech bro billionaires are gunning for first with their AI slop (oh yeah, lots of strong opinions here).

If you want to engage in the arts, it should be a side gig.

A hobby.

Something you do in your spare time, but not something you actually like… share with people, or want to make a living off of. I mean, come on, get a 9-5 job like the rest of the world and do your part.

But can we step back and imagine a world without the arts?

If we start really thinking about how much we’d lose, I think the narrative would have to start to change.

No more books.

No more music.

No more art on the walls.

Okay, we’re probably all on the same page there. Let’s go a bit farther?

No more plays.

No more galleries.

No more video games.

There would be no fan fiction, because the original stories would never be published or shared.

There would be no fan art, because there would be nothing to base the art on.

Everything would be silence. Everything would be cold logic and facts, because there would be no stories to soften the hard truths we share about the world. There would be no social connection, no artistry in our food, in our graphics, in our logos (if we even had logos at all). No dancing, no singing, no instruments.

But don’t worry, we can have computers replace them.

Oh yeah? What would you base it off of if you didn’t have human to steal from to feed the machine?

You think computers can create from nothing?

You think they can bring the same heart and soul—the longing, anguish, desire, pleasure, delight—that human experience can throw on the page?

This is not an anti-AI rant (I’ll save that for another day).

This is a rant that points out for crucial the arts are not only for the enjoyment of our lives but for our survival. Maybe not our living, breathing, day to day existence, but for humanity’s survival. For our ability to look around the see the beauty of the world even if the bleakest, darkest times.

In the song Rent (Rent: 1994), Mark Cohen says, “The opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation.”

And gods have I internalized this belief.

To be in the arts is to be part of the resistance. To continue to create beauty (made of both darkness and light), to share our stories, to pour our hearts and souls into the world is to ensure the continued empathy and protection of humanity.

We need to remember that whenever some corporate blowhard looks down on us for being an artist.

We need to remember that whenever the government cuts funding because the arts aren’t important.

We hold more power than we believe.

So use that power. Keep creating. Keep proving how empty the world would be without us.