In a world of abundance, everyone can be an artist.
Art is an expression of the beauty and fire within one’s soul. It is as natural an aspect of human existence as breathing. This creative flame is dampened and suppressed in many of today’s societies where people are conditioned to spend their hours of leisure passively consuming rather than actively creating. This has led to separation and a disconnect between the creator and the consumer.
A consequence of this disconnect is the tendency to deify artists considered the best in their fields, to put them on a pedestal and denigrate the rest. The proliferation of awards shows, “best of” lists, and debates over “who is greater” in mass media is evidence of this. The perceived separation between “great artists” and mere mortals often leads to anxiety and self-doubt among budding creators, many of whom are so beholden to the work of their heroes that they eventually give up on their own talents and aspirations for fear of not measuring up. This tragedy is compounded by their becoming influential gatekeepers later in life, and woe betide any upstart who dares emulate one of their Great Artist heroes if they do not immediately display the requisite talent.
My intention in pointing out this imbalance in modern society is not to judge but to shed light and bring awareness, for I too have been guilty at times of such an attitude. Who hasn’t? “Everyone’s a critic,” so the saying goes. Not for much longer. In the new world, everyone is an artist, or will be.
I invite you to imagine a world where spontaneous creation, rather than addictive consumption, is the norm.
In the world of abundance that is within touching distance, where time will be much less scarce a commodity, a lot more people are going to have a great deal more free time to explore their hidden passions, be they making handicrafts, learning an instrument, or writing. With more time will come higher demand and availability of artistic tools, knowledge, platforms, and technology.
Most people, when they become artists themselves, will develop more empathy and compassion for their fellow creators. They will discover that the true joy of art lies not in the consumer-creator exchange, but the thrill of participation and collaboration with others.
This new-found freedom to explore the artist within all of us will lead to a further expansion of our collective consciousness. Humankind enters a new dimension in its spiritual evolution when making art becomes second nature to every individual. “Make love, not war” may as well be rephrased as “make art, not war” for art is, at its core, about love. “War is an absolute failure of imagination,” wrote the poet Adrienne Rich. A society that develops its imagination and habitually makes full use of it is one much more likely to find peaceful solutions to its major conflicts.
