it’s a heavy load. to be the woke – the empathetic, voiced, visioned, courageous, big-feelinged folks – both disparaged and desperately needed.
when all else has been sloughed off, when all else has failed, when all else is dross, it is art that will remain…there will still be heart.
this quote – way too big to actually write about without a feeling of undeserved arrogance, way too big to even begin to dissect without a feeling of ineptitude – it is an urge, a plea, a last-licks, it is an imperative we artists follow anyway: to turn complex feelings into something people can touch, can hear, can see, can taste. to turn that which we cannot see in any simplicity – beliefs, faith, love, philosophy, interconnectedness, bigotry, hatred – into something we can feel, something that resonates, something that gives us bite-sized bits to try and grok.
contemporaneously, without bruce springsteen there would still be the streets of minneapolis. but his music, his lyrics – his song has given beat and melody to the excruciating pain and stalwart dedication of the people in those streets. his music has given the rest of us – those of us in other places – also in pain and with dedication – something to grab onto, something to hold and wave and hum.
contemporaneously, without bad bunny there would still be a half-time show in the super bowl. there would still be grammy winners. but his tear-filled words, his staunchly raw comments ricocheting off the walls of the arena gave goosebumps to the rest of us – something we could grab onto, something to hold and wave and speak.
contemporaneously, without the cartoonists populating social media, the stuff that is happening would still be happening. but those cartoonists are bravely offering humor – sometimes truly dark humor – to give us something to grab onto, something to hold and wave and maybe, just maybe, laugh at.
there isn’t any way to rise and reclaim this place without the artists who are the building blocks for actual humanity, the collective melt in the melting pot, the mortar that holds it all together even when it collapses.
“people got to come together, not just out of fear…” (chicago – where do we go from here? – 1970)
it is never not the artists’ time. now is not different.
“let’s all get together soon, before it is too late
forget about the past and let your feelings fade away
if you do i’m sure you’ll see, the end is not yet near…“
the artists have already taken all those big, complex feelings and turned them into something we all can believe in. they’ve been doing it all along. the whole of time.
the world does need artists’ voices, artists’ vision and artists’ courage.
steep yourselves in it all. urgently. get brave. get going.
“where do we go
where do we go
where do we go from here?”
*****
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