15/08/2023
Art is Necessary David Seeger Kevin Atherton Penelope Matheson
I really recommend writing as a developed skill. Writing forces you to organize your thoughts, of course, but I think it also allows you to experience the world in a deeper way than those who simply witness it.
Maybe it's not just writing; maybe all artistic fields have this effect. When you see the world and write about it, create music about it, compose dance about it, paint it or sculpt it, photograph it, it forces you to be more conscious, more aware of the nature of it -- the texture, the sounds and colors, the depth of it.
I see things happening around me, sometimes even simple, silly things, and I want to tell people what I see, what I feel, what I understand, when I see them. That desire, and the writing that sometimes follows it, causes the scene to blossom in my head, to expand and open, in a way I very seldom hear other people express.
For instance, I was driving through a valley in western New York a few days ago, and I suddenly realized the valley was a sort of message -- the message of a three dimensional, long-time-axis process -- that hinted at the river flowing through the center of it. Built into the shape of the valley was this processional billboard that shouted RIVER! -- But also spoke of erosion, millions of years of flowing water and the slow sculpting that accompanied it. I couldn't even see the river, but the terrain around me told me it was there.
That thought expanded out to thoughts of the other messages built into the world around us. All of nature speaks in a visible language, conveying information about itself. Nothing is hidden, but at the same time, you can't understand any of it unless you focus on learning and seeing and hearing. Generations of observers before you, each taking down patient facts, slowly pin down the words in Nature's vocabulary, and eventually -- if you take the trouble to LEARN some of that language (as so many of us don't) -- you can hear and understand the voices of geology, biology, physics and chemistry, so much more.
I think of myself as a sort of tourist on Earth, here for a short time and not very deeply involved. But this stuff makes me feel both connected in a very cool way, and yearningly dismayed at all I will never learn about the place.
But meanwhile ... I can look and listen. And write.
