2020 has been a wild ride. I know that I'm not the only person who regularly feels down, uncertain, and angry. With pandemics, systemic racism, and police brutality consuming every news feed I come across, it's hard to find the motivation to make time for creativity. Everyone that I interact with has struggled with feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, and all of these feelings are fair and valid. This time has been difficult. We are more isolated than we, as connection-seeking humans, are meant to be. We are seeing daily videos of human cruelty and fear. We are likely arguing with loved ones (and if not loved ones, at least those social media connections that were at one point (hopefully) loved ones). It is hard to find the space, the time, or the energy to allow ourselves to create.
And yet, my mind keeps replaying something I witnessed after the divisive 2016 election. I attended a public reading with my mentor, Jennifer Sinor (who if you haven't read her work, it's beautiful and worth reading (jennifersinor.com), who asked the visiting reader what they thought the role of creativity was in troubled times. I wish that I was a better listener, so I could quote what the visiting reader said, but since I can't even remember the reader's name (their writing wasn't the style that I actively seek out), but I can't quote what they said, because it wasn't what they said that stuck with me, it was the question that still stays with me.
It seems like every day the world moves deeper and deeper into what could be safely labeled as "troubled times." We have a government that has actively decided to work against the interests of the people they have been elected to represent. It can be challenging to earn a living wage. And if you are a minority, you can easily think of the many ways that you have had to fight to have what so many other people take for granted. The world is troubled, and it is troubled because we have steadily lost connection with one another.
I don't mean to simplify the complex politics that have caused the divisions int he world. There are aspects that I don't understand, and I am grateful that I do not have a career in politics. What I want to point to is a system that has constantly worked toward dehumanizing and disconnecting us from one another. The examples of this division and disconnection are countless, and if you look for them, you will see them.
The goal of all great art is to create connection and understanding from divided people. We will never be able to be fully united with anyone. Even at an atomic level, we can never actually touch another person. Each of us are, and will eternally be individuals, prone to loneliness and lack of connection. But art transcends that loneliness/isolation/solitude. Through art we reach beyond what is to create something new. We create new worlds, new understandings, new stories, new connections. In these troubled times, I choose to reach. I reach out to find and share love. I reach out to hear and understand the stories of others. I reach out to create a world where we can focus more on what connects us than what divides us.
I hope that you reach with me.