I am an artist. I have used visual and written and musical expressions to participate in life ever since I can remember. I have both shared my art, such as in public performances of singing and playing guitar (ah, the 1960’s coffee houses and hoot n’ nannies) and showed paintings and drawings in more art fairs than I care to recall, and for better or worse it has been how I lived life. I wondered why everyone didn’t do the same thing. I still wonder.
(image: lint means of self protection - lint knives and lint gun)
I like diversity. I tolerate ambiguity. I admire creativity and resilience. And, I trust the process of scientific discovery, research, peer reviewed and shared data to better inform us all on the ways the world works. I revel in the photos from the Webb deep space telescope and revel even more seeing images from electron microscopes showing, for example, a myosin protein "walking" along a brain filament dragging an endorphin to its destination in the parietal cortex of the brain = the happiness and healing chemical. OMG... a picture of Happiness being created!!
We are chemical beings. Every thought, every emotion, every sound and sight heard and seen is a chemical process in our brains. I love that. I am endlessly fascinated and grateful to be alive here and now and learning these things. Even when I felt like crap, or after a panic attack, wow, glad to be back, glad to be alive, grateful to be here typing.
I also believe that whatever God may be, God is good with the self-revelations science brings us. To deny science is a denial of God (or the Universe) - in my humble opinion, and that seems a bit on the nutty side of the scale. All that is well and good and still there are even more pressing issues than the sad rift that persists between some religious and some scientific adherents. That any rift persists troubles the peace of all beings.
What concerns me is more, too much in the last couple of years, in the news, is the violence done to innocent people just living life.... some misguided angry kid, most often a young white male, takes a gun and enters a store, a market, a parade, a church or other religious worship service, or a night club and begins to murder people. How do we detect and stop that sort of person? What is lacking in our society that such individuals act out in such violently inappropriate ways? Did such acts always happen but we were unaware of them? I think back to ancient Egypt...weren't there people who crabbed about Amenhotep?
(image: Capitalism, oil on canvas)
" The first hate crime laws were passed after the American Civil War, beginning with the Civil Rights Act of 1871, in order to combat the growing number of racially motivated crimes which were being committed by the Reconstruction era-Ku Klux Klan." And here we are in December of 2022 and we are still not rid of this hate group.
Hate against Art is present as well. I remember stories of bulldozers destroying art fairs because the government found the art offensive. The Nazis saved some art and horribly destroyed others... such idiocy! Even my art has been considered by a few to be offensive.
I just want to scream sometimes… Why are you so offended??!! Stop it!! Take a chill pill!
It seems to me that such hate groups or hateful persons lack the education and experience to cope with the realities of life on this planet... there is diversity, and it is vital to all life's survival. There is ambiguity because every day is new and filled with new and different situations with which we must cope. There is creativity and resilience because we keep living....and breeding... oh my, there are now 8 billion of us and people still don't grasp the concept of finite resources.
It is up to us individually to be examples of what (for example) God loves.... or what the Universe provides us….to live we need justice and care for one another. If you are of a religious bent, then to you I say: Whatever judgement is to come is up to GOD. Whatever justice is to be done; it is up to GOD. We are here to be kind and helpful to one another. AND, if need be, enact laws to ensure we treat each other fairly. I know we have not been perfect, but it is a testament to a free society to keep trying.
To all others I encourage you to Speak out against acts of violence borne from hate and ignorance and pray for the souls of all who suffer from that hate and ignorance. Pray without ceasing. And TEACH art in schools again; have playground games and recess in schools again; get away from the computerized memes and artificial intelligence funneling all the young minds into being limited targeted consuming units for some overlord’s profit. YIKES...
Wow…. Now I’m sounding a little on the nut job side of things.
Well. There it is. I think I better go draw something other than blood.
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