If individual words or notes on a piano have no particular significance, then why can they be strung together and suddenly make us cry of happiness or shiver with anxiety? Evolution is a satisfactory answer for questions regarding our physical form, but what required us, unlike other animals, to develop such complex emotions and feelings? These questions, although crucial, seem unimportant at the moment as Linkin Park do their thing in my ears. Instead, the space previously occupied by curiosity is now replaced with overwhelming gratitude for the countless outlets gifted to us to express our emotions and for the existence of beautiful souls capable of replicating perfectly their inanimate feelings onto material objects for the rest of us to enjoy.
“Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the song of a bird? Why does one love the night, flowers, everything around one, without trying to understand them? But in the case of a painting people have to understand. If only they would realize above all that an artist works of necessity, that he himself is only a trifling bit of the world, and that no more importance should be attached to him than to plenty of other things which please us in the world, though we can’t explain them. People who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree.”― Pablo Picasso
I know how stupid this might sound and how unimportant my opinion is but I beg to differ with him. According to me the reason we cannot enjoy art stems not from our inability to understand, but rather our ever decreasing attention span, or in simpler words reluctance to even try to understand. In this era of likes and other forms of virtual internet points that we think would increase our real life approval rating, the content fed to us is carefully curated by powerful organizations whose only goal is to keep us scrolling down the rabbit hole . All of this is not as bad as it sounds however, because in the end it is we who choose to keep scrolling, with each post further adding to our dopamine. Anything that isn't as funny or exciting as the previous post is swiftly scrolled out of reach. But we never put in the effort to look closer and actually observe what we are looking at or listening to, which isn't our fault either, considering the amount of nonsense internet throws at us everyday. This is precisely the problem. Art demands that you take the time to bask in it and leave all your earthly concerns behind (almost like a drug), which our brain simply doesn't allow because it assumes the time devoted wouldn't be worth it.
Creation of Adam by Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel
the portal out of which God and the angels are flying through looks exactly like a dissected brain hinting at Him being the mind's creation
This also explains why most of us cannot enjoy books (also art mind you) as people once could. They are way slower than our brains are used to keeping up with, a fact capitalized by movie adaptations of said books (start reading and you'll realize why most of their movies are absolute trash).
But you already knew all this didn't you. We all did. Yet we chose to stay in this state of willful ignorance because art is beyond our comfort zone. Those in this bubble are not satisfied with their memes and tiktok videos, but at the same time are scared to step out fearing they may not understand that which lies beyond, as school and society has conditioned them into believing. So trust me, and take the leap. Pick up that book you've heard so much about and read a few pages without bias, or put on your headphones and chill with Beethoven and friends. Afterwards if you feel like this isn't your thing, that's perfectly fine because you tried. But if it is, that opens up entire universes for you to live in, with no sorrow or fear or responsibilities. Or maybe filled with sorrow and fear and responsibilities, if that's your thing.