A Quiet Canvas Upon Which to Paint

What consequences does changing the human condition bring? We are all ready seeing it on a monumental scale in film production. Whereas films used to rely on emotional response to drive the drama, today it relies upon formula. True acting does not exist. Actors and actresses are phoning their parts in, because it has become passé to emote. It’s not cool to be emotional. The definition of cool is just that. Cool. Unemotional. To be cool there has to be an intellectual premise underneath meriting the cool displacement from the unhip. It’s to bad at the moment there is no artistic movement to back up Hollywood’s glam-cool imagery. That’s what the Fine Arts are supposed to do. They provide the real inspiration and substance for Hollywood’s imagery. Is there any “Cool Jazz” happening at the Baked Potato in L.A.? Why is “pop” singing still is in vogue? It is because “pop” embraces no feeling at all except happiness. No one can be happy all the time, and trying to force the public to feel preconceived happiness is a formula for depression. When people can’t actualize their true feelings, they become depressed. The American people are depressed, because they do not know what they are feeling. It is the job of the artist to provide this relief through the wisdom in music. Pavarotti didn’t get famous singing “pop.” Opera embraces emotion, because we as human beings need emotion to make us feel human. When we lose touch with the profile of common emotions that define the human race, we become confused. We are not robots. Film is dead because the venue that once provided the canvas upon which art could be created no longer exists. That venue was a blank, quiet, contemplative environment undisturbed by the pollution of American industry. We no longer have that. We live in the remnants and artifacts of Big Business that itself has a “cool” disdain for the American people’s true needs. Try going out, standing in the middle of a street, and thinking about something. Try to think abstractly. Try to think in advance of the current moment. Try to think in depth about something. Try to solve a problem or work out an emotional response. You can’t do it, and our students can’t do it in classrooms littered with causes of ADHD. The pace of the world fueled by frenetic TV has ruined the idea that something could be created in a quiet space. There are those that say the world has gotten too quiet. This is another fallacy, because all of us are tied together by great “sheets of sound” created by industry. While it may seem quiet at a particular moment, rest assured what you are hearing is not what God intended. He intended us to hear the sounds of birds and of a cool breeze rustling through the leaves on a tree. He intended us to hear the crickets and the muted barks of dogs. He intended us to hear the roar of water and the joyous laughter of children at play. He didn’t intend for us to hear Harley Davidson motorcycles, headers on pick up trucks, and thumping stereos playing bad Rap music. Those sounds may be a reflection of a country at war. You have to have courage to leave quiet space, and we fail at the attempt. We are too nervous, afraid, and panicky to allow a second to go by where we may feel something of which we are not in control. We are too used to feeling, “Freaked out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional,” as Brad Pitt describes the acronym F-I-N-E. Eastern religion is based upon this concept, but you have to have a pristine space to be able to practice it. With the Republican led movement to buy up America at large, there will be few places left to Mother Nature. Cleanse the mind of the worthless fodder of everyday life. That is the task at hand. That is what surfing does. That is what skating does. Sit on a grassy hill and meditate. Wait for good things to happen. Those good things should be enlightenment from our minds, except that our minds are being polluted with our bodies. Those with natural talent are blessed with an instinctive gift to create naturally. They actualize abstractly through their emotions. Industry as a whole carelessly has overtaken our environment not allowing us the canvas we need to paint the picture of life. Whether it be a drive-in theater, a burger joint, a soda fountain, or the local pub America needs these outlets for tactile release. Cyberspace cannot move the flesh and the emotions the way real life should. We will not become an enlightened nation until we learn to rely on our own minds. It is about rushing around, slaving nine to five, making dinner, dropping off the kids, and beginning to do it all over the next day. Who picked this lifestyle? Who said as Americans we have to do this? Is this what capitalism is all about? The Protestant Work Ethic? Working your fingers to the bone? There is enough money in the world for everyone, and it is a shame only the wealthy can afford to buy the amenities in life we used to be provided by Mother Nature. It seems game and television programmers have appointed themselves the keepers of the flame, yet they are failing on a massive scale.