"Artist are not like athletes. We can not win Gold. We can not beat other creatives. We can not come first. Sports is Objective. Our craft is subjective. Creating to "Be the best" is a waste of energy. Instead, create to connect to the people who need you. Because they're out there. Create in your way, because there is no right way. Take the pressure off, and focus on your unique brand of magic." ~Janice Gourley Forks, WA, Jennifer Pelikan Forks, WA and Rainforest Council for the Arts
ompetition in todays world equates not only with being rewarded economically, but socially as well. Those who achieve the Gold standard of achievement (the Gold Cup, trophy etc...) are rewarded financially and the message is sent to those who did not achieve, they are inferior in status both skill wise and in social desirability. They become seen as a somehow deficient citizen, person, undesirable, their knowledge is in question, and to change that status they have to dominate others to succeed. Someone has to be conquered and their status taken away. Legal requirements are suspended for them and even ignored, they are afforded a level of privacy much higher than those who do not share their status and doors open for them which are solely based upon their competitive status which was achieved at the cost of another, and maintaining that status is self perpetuating of continuing that cost. There is a school of thought children should not be rewarded for participating in an event, especially sports. There should be no reward or acknowledgement for participating because if they did not "win", they are obviously losers and should be treated as such and publicly acknowledged as such, and punished for their participation and not achieving a trophy or place. They lost, and should suffer the social stigma of having done so and the loss of privilege. It is what the world is like so they should be indoctrinated to those concepts now so they will be able to live with them out in society as adults, and pass those same values on to their children who can compete in turn for the "Gold Ring" and social status. That theory of thought sugar coats their premises and doesn't put them forth in the same verbiage as I just did, but the message is the same from them or myself. Even today, despite regulations against such practices, Athletes are afforded lower academic achievements if it is going to interfere with their competition to participate in the sport and traditionally Athletic programs are more prosperous funding than those of the Artistic programs. The arts are seen as expendable because they are not competitive based.
ndy Warhol or Vincent van Gogh? Lord Tennyson or Robert Frost? Which one is the first place winner for Artist or Poet? How do we measure it? There is no statistical graph showing their average batting statistics or who has the fastest time to write a poem and complete dinner. Does the consensus of popularity make the word a good work of art (absent the market place which is a competitive process based not on the work of art but only how much one can sell it for). The higher the selling prices, determines future increases in value). In an auction house I would argue the bidding for art is more for status and financial investment than it is for deeper, emotional and psychological impacts of the work itself. Art becomes fashion, an fad which can come and go and people are competing on buying that place in society even if it may be fleeting. After all, if they tire of it they can sell it again. Artist deal with the unmeasurable dimensions of the human psyche. Joseph Campbell once described the poet as having an ear nearest to the heartbeat of the cosmos so tell me, how does one objectively measure such an experience? Even the Aristotelian books on Poetics only tell us his standards for writing poetry, just as english books only teach us mechanical dynamics of poetry which vary but none agree on what is the best, the 1st place Trophy poetry. I can tell you unequivocally the most popular or most read poetry is not necessarily the best or defining artistic work. WW II Germany tried this with their designation of "Degenerative Art" program, but it was based more the ideas that designation did not reflect the Aryan idea of perfection as opposed to any deficiencies in the art itself. The fact that most of the artist were from persecuted peoples the Nazis automatically condemned the works regardless. But, despite that designation the art works survived because of their subjectivity. I am not a big fan of Warhol's work, but others find it profoundly impacting and as such I can't discount the importance of the work and the experience. There is no competition here, or should not be. There are no losers. Human beings who attach that label to others, in or out of competition, are projecting their own trauma and inadequacies onto others.
his raises the question is there still room for the artist in todays society? The answer is absolutely yes and more than ever the Artist must stand defiant to the notions humans are inadequate unless they meet the idea of superiority is normal. The human race has already proven repeatedly our standards of superiority require us to bring us to the brink of extinction, to enact and foster human suffering with token shows of relieving that suffering when we exceed our capacity as human beings to bring it to bay and make it flee. Yet we are going to teach our children don't cry when you feel isolated from your peers or humiliated, or have tried your best and people still label you loser. You are not even allowed to soothe your angst with a ribbon, go out for ice cream, dinner etc... with your team. The expert says you are weak because your competition didn't measure up, so now you suffer the pain and humiliation for it because that is the way of the world. You have become a victim early on, suck it up and live your legacy. Emotion is bad, keep it in, Stiff upper lip, feelings are weak, grow a pair and don't be one. Artist works and like endeavour allow us to deprogram this destructive and predatory nonsense and therein is the opposition because as Artists we dispel the illusions that material wealth, social status etc.. equates to stability and human perfection and how many dead and maimed lay at our feet determines our self worth. If we truly believe in the Age of Aquarius let us usher it in now and not wait for the stars to align, or a magic formula to appear on our social media. Our own sacred writings tell us if this is not done, "The stones will cry out." Indeed they have, deep in Prehistoric caves in France (Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave) Shamans and seekers alike proved this their Art endures beyond the ballfield or corporate office. The survival of Nazca lines, Petroglyphs on stone throughout the United States which also served as ancient observatories and more. The Artist is a force of nature, tied directly to the Jungian Archetypes in our Deep unconscious, unmeasurable and manifested through secondary means (Dreams, emotions, metaphor, Symbolic expressions, imagination) all the subjective and antithesis to competition to be the best because it is a personal standard, not a communal one.
ntry into the gates of Fey were always easy for those with the right reasons for entering. It wasn't the gates were closed, on the contrary they were always open except in time of great peril that hopefully the world would no longer see. The Fey valued connection deeply, which is one of the reasons the children of humans and Faerie alike were so beloved because children were natural and easy to connect with. Those who entered Fey with mischief or evil in their hearts would find it a most unpleasant place sooner or later as the Fey were not all beings of light and dark, but also something much more consuming and destructive and humans whose intents were bent inherently were drawn to these places which knew they simply had to wait as opposed to venturing forth to seek such prey. As such they made their abodes deep inside the Sidhe realms as far from human contact as possible, and from the other Fey as well. These were realms of sorrow and misery, of decay and death simply for death's sake beyond the purpose of what death's role really was meant to be. These creatures, few though they were, rejected any material form and their subsistence was derived from fear and all the miserable, hateful intents of any creature who came into their path. It was a realm of suppression and heaviness that would gradually weigh one down into inaction, destroying the physicality but trapping the consciousness which at that point didn't even know it was dead, or was even conscious enough to know much if anything. The only people, other than those already described, who dared venture this far were the Bards whose words and music negated the affects of the realm, freeing the trapped consciousness and leaving only the wisps of dust to settle back into the gloom One might wonder with such power why these places remained but it was not the job of the Bards to destroy, to dominate, to be the questing knight or crusader to die for a piece of dogma. The Bards preserved the essence of the world, Human and Sidhe alike, without dominating one or the other, without seeking glory or accolades of the favor of the populace of nobility. They were simply who they were, and their music and words (written or spoken) created their own illumination to be taken or ignored. They simply lived.
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