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Should I Still be Creating Art While the World Seemingly Goes Mad?
Yes. We need to be creating art now more than ever.
I don’t know about you, but it feels wrong to me.
And I think that I know where it comes from. One line almost perfectly expresses the sentiment of the feeling of the wrongness of creating art as the world goes mad:
Nero fiddled while Rome burned.
There are, of course, two ways to define the word “fiddled”. But for this purpose, we’re looking at the idea of playing music while everything around you is on fire.
Between COVID, the ongoing destruction in Ukraine, expanding and uncontrolled gun violence across America, and increasing reactionary horrors, it rather feels like the world has gone mad. And the hits just keep on coming.
Thus, creating art in the face of this madness feels disingenuous. Inappropriate. And even, wrong.
But it’s not. Because the artistic things we create can go a long way toward putting the madness in check and building peace.
Art in its many forms is an expression of the human spirit. And as things disempower us and make us feel dispirited, more things to counter this are necessary.
