In art class, you learn how to draw, you learn about perspective, composition, shading, the color wheel etc etc. They are things you need but its not actually what really matters because what matters and speaks the word art is that which is new and not mere skill or technical capability but something else entirely. Not something which is only admired but something which also makes you question why you admire it.
It's like sitting in a cafe (where I was when I wrote this) and wondering who the people in the photographs are but not wondering who the people sitting around you are (exactly what I was doing). As if the people in the photos are somehow more important because they will be there after you leave. As if for some unjustifiable reason, permanence dictates more gravitas. As if what matters does not have the capacity to die, as if beauty does not move or change but sits atop a pedestal simply waiting to be admired. Pedestals do nothing for beauty, art and culture should grant accessibility and speak to us not above us. Culture should be a dialogue not a set of instructions.
Maybe that which is truly important is that which has the potential to surprise us and maybe ultimately to change rather than remain a permanent feature, to drink coffee and leave and let new people (aka; ideas) sit down. This shouldn't be confined to the idea of art, why is the same freedom not bestowed upon thought?
Why do not learn to think and reason first and treat it like a craft? The basis of any craft is a firm foundation in the basic principles. If you are going to start to learn any craft, you learn *how* first, then you ask *what* as in what you will create. Except few ask *what* because no one knows *how* to ask *what* in the first place. Instead we are taught *what* first and only, what happened, what is happening, what will happen... So when someone decides to ask what *should* happen, no one knows *how* to answer it. It's like deciding to paint without knowing what a brush is for. If we don't have the freedom of thought to ask what should happen, if we treat knowledge like something that is only to be known instead of to be used, if we keep seeing it as something to be only read, to be only listened to, then who will do the writing, who will do the *doing*?
We need more freedom of thought, we need to see that, that what matters not only does change but should change. Culture should be recycled, be re-newed, and ultimately burst forth with the new, not be re-used and re-used and re-used until it is worn and dies. Knowledge should be recognized with the same capacity of creation and birth that we give to art and culture. Creativity lies not only in our ability to make beauty but to make change. To think *is* an art and it needs to be admired in the same way as a type of beauty and an ideal.
It's like sitting in a cafe (where I was when I wrote this) and wondering who the people in the photographs are but not wondering who the people sitting around you are (exactly what I was doing). As if the people in the photos are somehow more important because they will be there after you leave. As if for some unjustifiable reason, permanence dictates more gravitas. As if what matters does not have the capacity to die, as if beauty does not move or change but sits atop a pedestal simply waiting to be admired. Pedestals do nothing for beauty, art and culture should grant accessibility and speak to us not above us. Culture should be a dialogue not a set of instructions.
Maybe that which is truly important is that which has the potential to surprise us and maybe ultimately to change rather than remain a permanent feature, to drink coffee and leave and let new people (aka; ideas) sit down. This shouldn't be confined to the idea of art, why is the same freedom not bestowed upon thought?
Why do not learn to think and reason first and treat it like a craft? The basis of any craft is a firm foundation in the basic principles. If you are going to start to learn any craft, you learn *how* first, then you ask *what* as in what you will create. Except few ask *what* because no one knows *how* to ask *what* in the first place. Instead we are taught *what* first and only, what happened, what is happening, what will happen... So when someone decides to ask what *should* happen, no one knows *how* to answer it. It's like deciding to paint without knowing what a brush is for. If we don't have the freedom of thought to ask what should happen, if we treat knowledge like something that is only to be known instead of to be used, if we keep seeing it as something to be only read, to be only listened to, then who will do the writing, who will do the *doing*?
We need more freedom of thought, we need to see that, that what matters not only does change but should change. Culture should be recycled, be re-newed, and ultimately burst forth with the new, not be re-used and re-used and re-used until it is worn and dies. Knowledge should be recognized with the same capacity of creation and birth that we give to art and culture. Creativity lies not only in our ability to make beauty but to make change. To think *is* an art and it needs to be admired in the same way as a type of beauty and an ideal.
