02-26-2019, 03:42 PM
(02-24-2019, 06:04 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: l never really expected greatness in modern culture/arts. Maybe because I grew up watching television, which has been primarily a medium for advertising.
In general, I have hoped for material that reaches the level of good quality-but never greatness. Actually, over the years even good quality seemed to get harder and harder to find.
I did expect this, because there was an Awakening that was inspiring. There was hope that the doors of perception had opened for many people. So, the potential for great art today comes not only from new technology, but even more from the new awakening, and some of that was due to technology for opening the mind, known as psychedelics.
It all depended on the people, what they did with this awakening. Did we follow a spiritual path? Did it open up philosophy and inquiry into the human condition? Could some of this new sensitivity and inquiry be expressed in the arts? Could it be great art?
It didn't happen, not very much; not as much as I thought it might. I enjoy what did come. I still think more can come. The Awakening remains open to everyone, anytime, to those who do not ignore it or put it down, to those who open their minds beyond the dominant, out-of-date materialist and technology-worship paradigms of our time.
If most of the art in our culture is not great or not even very good, that's ONLY because the predominant values and preoccupations of the people don't support and honor it.
We can look to the pre-awakening past; to the golden age of movies and big band music; to the promising trends in art a century ago; to the romantic, neoclassical, baroque, renaissance, medieval, classical, and archaic ages and wonder and learn about all the great expressions in art of spirit and discovery, and supported by the patrons and rulers of the past, all over the world east and west, north and south. We have more access to this than any people has ever had.
But if this past art does not inspire us to greatness, does not encourage us to take our contemporary awakening that opened the doors of perception, and make something lasting of it, then we are not fulfilling our potential. We can; we are not inferior to people in the past. Our creative juices and intuitions are available to us, and have been opened. We have more opportunity than any people has ever had to live well, and to communicate our visions, sensitivity and discoveries.