god and artists
Dolph has been sick. Jones has been sick. Loki is not doing so hot. Sometimes I wonder who is going to drop first here the animals or me. If I go down we all go down so I keep going. But I am tired.
We walk every four hours. Not too far. The dogs cannot go far. But Dolph has to go out that often now. And the more this goes on the more I think,
Wow old age sucks.
That is what is happening.
Old age.
I look at beautiful Loki. My golden angel. His whole coat is laced with white. Not just around his muzzle any more. His back and paws and legs. And Dolph. The sweetest dog in the world. I am not kidding I have never met a dog sweeter than Dolph.
His front paws shake. Two weeks ago he fell stepping off a curb. He cannot take recycling out with me any more. The stairs are too hard. We only go places that have ramps.
Someone asked me what the life expectancy is for a Norwegian Elkhound. I did not know so I looked it up.
Norwegian Elkhound Life Expectancy : 12
Dolph : 12
That gave me a heart attack. So I looked up Golden Retriever thinking it could not be worse.
Golden Retriever Life Expectancy : 10
Loki : 11
Um. Okay. That is worse. But those are generalizations and one place said Elkhounds were 12-15 and another said Goldens were 10-13 so everyone says something a little different and well, I beat every other statistic in the book we can beat those.
But we are trying something new. We have switched to a raw meat and bones diet. I have heard good things about it. I have heard questionable things about it too. But the good things come from people using it. And the bad things from people who have not used it. So now I have a cupboard full of fish oil and flax seed oil and probiotics (and even know what probiotics means) and a freezer full of chicken and a cannister full of mashed green beans in the refrigerator and, well, we will see.
Meanwhile.
I am worried about artists.
Americans grow up in a country that celebrates martyrs. The greatest thing you can do is die for a cause. A country. Another person. We give medals to people who risk their lives. And to people who lose their lives.
We do not give medals to people merely for living good lives.
We surround ourselves with statues to martyrs. Our foremost religion is represented by a crucifix. And we tell ourselves we believe in a loving god -- whatever or whomever that god may be. But. We don't believe that. That god would celebrate us being happy and doing what makes us happy. In our culture, anything joyful or happy must be wrong.
That is a problem for artists. Pursuing our craft we are ghosted by the belief, because we love what we do, it is wrong. If we did something we did not love, something miserable and grueling, well that would be noble and medal worthy. But to work at something we love, to pursue it, well that can't be right.
That is a big hurdle an artist has to get over or just block out to even pursue art. And we get away with it during good times. Close our eyes and ears to those inner whispers that say this is frivolous, useless, selfish. As long as the world is going okay, well it doesn't need us to put aside our dreams, our lives, our pursuits, our desires. We can do it. With guilt. But we can do it.
But then the world goes wrong. Gets hard. And the old whispers come back. Shake us by the collar. Stop us in our tracks. And all these writers I know are falling into despondence because all of that is resurfacing right here right now and artists feel, if they are not in New York sorting rubble and running into burning buildings, what we do, what we love, is useless. Insignificant. Wrong. Selfish. A downright sin.
Well. Let me point out something here.
God, or whatever power created this world we inhabit, is an artist. Look around. Every leaf, different. Every person the result of three trillion possible outcomes. Each stone a unique shape, color, pattern, geometric design. The dirt itself etched layer upon layer of color.
What mad artist would create a snowflake? Scratch that. Snowflakes. Millions of them. Each distinct, ethereal, individual -- and transient. Such attention to detail and form spent on one flake that may only last a second, yet that is long enough to make it worthwhile.
If art is frivolity, it is divine frivolity. Celebrated in every sub-atomic particle surrounding us. And artists follow in the footsteps of God. Reaching into the ether to bring back visions, ethereal and transient. Of a future that may be achieved, of a nobility we can aspire to, of a world if we are very lucky, we may, through the vision of it, someday create.
Art inspires hope when we have lost hope. Courage, when we have reached despair. Strength, when we are weak. Joy, where joy has been lost. Reason, when sanity has abandoned us. A pathway, when we are in darkness. Nobility in the humble. Humility in the powerful. And divinity, when we truly strive.
And when we reach, the whole world reaches with us -- as high as we can see.
If that will not save the world I do not know what will.
Reach.
