More than ever, narrowing our focus to pay attention is a way to preserve sanity and find evidence that a world of beauty remains beneath the noise of too much going on.
A few months ago, I ordered this small book that I read through and noted a few passages. The other day, The Ezra Klein Show podcast featured a conversation with the author, titled A Breath of Fresh Air with Brian Eno. A big departure from the show’s usual political focus, it was a pleasant surprise for me. Others in hope of the usual dose of discourse, may have tuned out of the seemingly less vital talk. Yet, all that art has to offer a person may be some of the more significant things being sucked out of our culture. Appreciation for what is not entirely understood likely leads to greater acceptance of what is unfamiliar. Our world is in need of this.
I looked at the pages that I had marked…
Art is a name we give to a certain type of experience. It’s the name for a kind of engagement we have with something.
That statement says a lot about how I arrive at a title for a painting. This is not a labored process. When it is complete, a name appears to me.
The feelings generated by art aren’t always nice feelings, but they won’t hurt you. Art is a fiction. Art is escapable.
Generally, we do not end up with PTSD after hearing a raging classical orchestra or attending the ballet perform The Rite of Spring. We go have a nice meal and do not suffer nightmares.
Art can have tremendous effect on the world—that is why dictators have been so eager to lock artists away or employ them as propagandists. Art is effective because it is safe.
Pablo Picasso’s Guernica is one of the world’s most powerful and memorable antiwar paintings. It hangs on a wall and stirs the hearts and minds of those who ponder it.
Eno emphasizes how crucial it is in life to get clear about what you really like.
Art hits us in a place that is not in need of words so quite helpful in this endeavor. Self-discovery is often arrived at by experiencing what is not liked. Then, there are those other times when meeting someone, hearing a voice or a certain riff of music, stopping in front of a painting is unexplainably a dizzying moment. Something connects a whole lot more than usual.
Eno’s art has been part of what I like, as I have enjoyed Music for Airports since 1980 and I have Taking Tiger Mountain on an MP3 of songs I play in the car. Knowing what I like is in constant flux, though. While Eno uses the term like, in our era of quick thumbs up Facebook liking, I prefer to instead entertain the idea of connection. Some of the objects of liking change, but the ability to know and appreciate (connect with) becomes more immediate.
These discoveries are bound to occur while paying attention. What we pay attention to is all we really have. A walk around Buffalo on a Saturday afternoon is full of evidence of that kind of appreciation.
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