Art, Emotion, and a New World


Envision a world where everything was art.  Hanging on the  walls, on your plate for every meal, the plate itself, every dwelling and office, the city dump, the toilet you release in, the most common tool of an ink pen.  

I envision this as I realize that every human being is an artist and possessed of creative ability.  And if we built the world we have now, then we could build the next one. 

I feel that when we are within a creative act we are the closest to God that we can be in a human form.  In that moment, literally meaning timeless, we are God over the universe that is our creation.  We get a glimpse of what it must be like to be boundless within everything and nothing.  

(Rant:  Can you imagine what God must feel being in a state of continual creation, where upon your very creations become creative?  The exponential joy of it all.)

Not to speculate too much on God and God’s feelings, but might we look at art or the result of creative force, as emotion made into something tangible.  That this entire physical world was manifest as an explosion of God’s emotion.  

Human emotion seems to arise out of duality; the pull of pleasure and pain; the mad battle of the mundane vs. the mystery.  Emotion is not an option or something that we could subdue; it is inevitable as a human.  We are here to channel emotional energy as a fuel which might very well begin to energize and inspire our path back to God.  

(Rant:  We could power the entire world, every car and every city, if we took all emotion from love through hate, and harnessed its energy.)

But for the time being, could we not begin to let our emotional outpourings be directed into filling the world with art?  Every single thing would be made beautiful and unique.  Humans would become the filters for emotion and the beauty of creative expression would be their outlet.  The air would be cleansed of feelings that now found a home in everyday objects.  Dread, fear, and anxiety would not hover about us as a veil to hide our joy.  Our daily lives would be neutralized and calm, but beauty and inspiration would be all around us to keep us mindful and reverent.  Think about it:  when we’re surrounded by the immense beauty of nature, or engrossed in a book we can’t put down, or gazing into the intricate depth of painting, we are completely content and timeless; closer to God.

I understand how this seems impractical.  It would do away with the assembly line and the mass production of so many things.  (Whether we need these things is a whole other subject.)  But I am speaking of a whole new world where money is not the main objective.  Many things would be done differently.

So in conclusion, I feel it is our Dharma to make the world beautiful through the emotion thrust upon us from the tidal wave of duality.  It has the potential to lift us ever closer to an integrative harmony with our universe.