art is creation

i've been reading a lot of comics lately.


let it be known to one and all: i'm generally a book person.


i love the smell of them, the feel of them, and if it's a used book i love to think about the history of it, who owned it, who bought it and for whom, and the best question of all: why? i love those possibilities... the stories behind the books themselves, i love those, almost as much as i love the book.  


but lately, it's all been about the comics (yes, i can hear your collective sigh: give me a break!)


i think the recent comic obsession is, in part, that art inspires art.


(oh shut up, comics are art, if properly done and all.)


art inspires people. art inspires scientists! art inspires, well everyone! it's important.


(i'm using art in a general sense right now.) 

art is dancing, singing, writing, drawing, painting, street art, graffiti.


art is, and yes, this is the perfect word: creation.


hell, art is screaming your soul out loud, and hoping to god, the gods, goddesses, hell anyone with ears that is mightier than us mere mortals, that someone cares and listens and feels something when they see/hear/watch it. 


but, despite the god depute, art is for the people! to make them feel something. the goal, for me, is to have that feeling, ponder in the person, and then, to create their own. 
maybe it's an essay.
maybe it's a piece of graffiti that makes the world cry.
maybe it's destruction for the purpose of making people feel something deep inside their soul.

all it takes is one person to create a piece of art that speaks to a generation.

in this world of technology, it's so easy to forget that, when we, as a species, had very little in the way of technology (by little i mean, we had fire), but we still told stories: on walls, on pottery, around the fire to explain the inexplicable. because art is important. art inspires, it gives us common ground, sometimes it gives us answers, more often than not, it gives us questions.


and yet, here in america, we are so obsessed with jobs and occupations, that it's part of our culture to assume that it is proper and important to ask what our occupations are.
yes, it is necessary to have shelter, food, health insurance. 
and, yes money makes life easier. however, whenever you get to know someone, the first question you will most likely ask is "so what do you do for a living?" or, if you're in school, "what do you plan to do for a living?" what is wrong with our society? how did we let this happen?

the important question is not "what is your current occupation?" here are some questions if you want to get to know someone: "what do you dream about?", "what makes you laugh?", "if you had a super power what would it be?", "what's your relationship with your family?", "what is your greatest fear?", "what was your first happy memory?", "what makes you feel alive?", "what was the craziest thing you've ever done?", "what's your favorite food?", "what's the first thing you do when you arrive in a new place?", "what would be your dream vacation and why?", "what's your favorite place in the whole world/what's your happy place?" these are questions that are worth something, in my mind at least (which, to be fair, is a crazy place indeed.) 


hell, have them take the free myers briggs type indicator online (because we know how reliable that is), that will at least give you something based on jungian typology... and that's online! sorry to lose my cool, but i was trying to prove a point.

there are so many other interesting questions that give us a way to get to know a person. but that's what we're conditioned to ask, culturally speaking. i do it, despite myself. but it's absurd! yes, eventually, the question of "what do you do for a living/where do you work?" will come up, and yes i understand it's relative importance, and yet, it shouldn't be the first question you ask someone because, let's face it, it's just not that important. very few people actually have their dream job. the rest of us are either working a job we hate, or if you're like me, you're not healthy to work, or the larger majority being that you can't find work/a job. so my occupation is "writer... waiting to be discovered, and hoping it'll happen sooner rather than later." 


so, if you're reading this and happen to be an artist, but you have to support yourself in some other way, and someone asks you what you do for a living, please, proudly answer (if you don't already), "i'm an artist."

now to address the possible cynics reading this... here we go: 
some might say: "hillary, is this why you wrote a rant about the relative unimportance of occupations, and why it shouldn't be the first question someone asks because it has no bearing on who you are as a person? are you a little bitter about the whole occupation thing because you are currently unemployed?" well, i have to say, of course i'm biased. we all are. it'd be a lie to say i can write without any bias. with that said, i stand by what i wrote, because i have believed this since i was a high school student, hell, since i was a middle school student. so there you go, naysayers/cynics. but, then you have to ask yourself, are you truly happy.