Art As Sustenance

For most people, art is a luxury—entertainment rather than a necessity.

We consume, excrete, work, make love, sleep, and, typically, art fills the blank spaces during the mundane moments.

Art is often relegated to a convenient and colourful way to mentally dissolve into a timeless vortex where our daily obligations are momentarily abated.

Until the wind changes, and we experience the death of a loved one, heartbreak, sudden illness, previously unimaginable suffering.

Then, something curious happens.

Amid our pain, we intuitively seek art to make sense of our agonising human predicament. Art becomes a meditation. A conduit for expressing the inexpressible. A profundity of experience that mocks syntax.

Suddenly, art becomes a crutch—a life rope, and it begins to make sense: this thing that humans instinctively create out of the ether. This phenomenon that has no utility value yet shakes us to the core of our being emerges as a deep need.

We begin to sense that art connects us to those who have also ached, experienced loss, sadness, despondency, and longed for change.

In contrast, when our lives are suddenly perforated by unexpected joy, bliss, and pleasure, we also seek art to understand ourselves and our experiences.

In the throngs of budding infatuation, desire, love, and gratitude, we yearn to know if anyone ever felt this vibrant, joyous, connected to the synchronicity of life.

Art becomes a vital thread connecting us to the immensity of the collective human experience. The aeonic need to express our particular nexus of reality. The yearning to be understood and derive strength from purpose and meaning in our lives.

Somehow, through the harmony of sounds and silence, colour and white space, and form and emptiness, we are comforted, healed, uplifted, and reminded of the Mystery.

In the poignant moments of our lives, art is no longer a luxury; it's sustenance.