Young Writers Society

It would appear that art is the manifestation of some deeper need for humanity to create. No objective statement may be made with certainty to ascertain whether or not this be metaphysically "good" or "bad", but mos are convinced it gives them great pleasure.

Note that upon receiving your current cognitive map of the world a great deal of your creativity was also required, to construct similarity between gesture language and touch, as well as give relative meaning to ones environment. Sometimes this is based off of linearlized learning facilities(stove is hot when button is red, because stove was cold when button wasn't), but sometimes we seem to have these wildcard slips we label "faith". This idea, "faith", has a funny way of guiding our lives. Whether or not we consider ourselves members of any one denomination, expectency of results, or comments upon the "isness" or "notness" of any on phenomena can only be a result of faith, regardless of how scientific we assume the assumption.

"Faith" is, well, our greatest art. Unfortunately it appears this great art is the one that suffers most from popularization. One could call this "dogma". When our creative systems draw blanks we look for reassurance from the world around us to validate our place as equal creator in the environment, in our mental maps of the universe. This is why many masters of Eastern esoteria have for so long alluded that "meaning" cannot be seperate from "ego". Meaning has to do with a certain perspective of the universe.

These perspectives, although wholly creative and wonderous and origin, have fallen trite with dogma.

So my question is this, do you live vicariously through your art, or does your art live through you? It appears we choose the beauty and the ugly in the world, and many consistently choose the state and view of moderation, although themselves claiming they are not particularily "happy" most of the time. If perception were viewed as a form of art, or as rather the final art(considering it's key to all other forms), could we not learn to maximize living and see the profundity in all situation, regardless of moral and meaning?

Real-Life Vorticism. If you aren't fulfilled, take it. Creativity shouldn't be confined to specified areas where it's been labeled "safe" or "intellectual". Your life should catch fire with your passion, not vice-versa.

I would say the latter, if only because I will eventually die, but with my death, art and beauty will not die. You could say that this is an assertion of the former proposition, of course, since it would appear that I would live forever through my art, but I maintain that this is not so; how can I, when I am dead, imagine myself to be part of my art and integrated through the world? It is more comforting for me to think that I am only a small member of a greater picture and that, altogether, we create a picture of infinite beauty. In contrast, if I lived vicariously through my art, then the world would be shrunk to just me and, though this narcissistic view does hold some appeal, I do not believe that art, on its deepest level, can be limited to just one self. Instead, it needs to reach out and affect others in order for it to be effective. This cannot be done in simply a personal level... instead, it must reach all levels, including the spiritual, in order for it to be considered effective. A simple man cannot do this. It is art acting through him.

Art acting through man. I agree. Art acts through man to give perception. When you see light you're actually "seeing" nothing, no form or color. The receptors hit the eyes that transmit it to a part of your brain that guesses form as it receives light based on the pre-assumption's it has taken on about it's surrounding environment. Your ears, nose, skin... all do similar things.

The fact we read these words is an art. The idealogies we gamble with, these monstrous unweidly organisms of thought, all art. America could be considered an art, so could sociopathy, so could the most mundane of things.

So everyone has always been art. We just seem to have a problem realizing this. When we're frustrated we assume it's beyond us, the same with depression. This is method acting. What's emotion built off of? Light receptors that make gambles, create forms you give identities and then... randomly create occurence with? Human interaction has no solidity to it, it's hardly materialist or scientifically empirical. You NEED belief. Like in a God.

People seem to forget this. Do you remember this? In your most terrible night terrors, do you understand it's all part of this incomprehensibly vast entanglement of still life pieces? Fear is an art as well, but being trapped to A pigment, with poetry, or music, get's boring, right? If we get bored in our lives, why do we continue to use the same pigment/aesthetics?

There was a book written on "Post-Modern Magick" which essentially stated that if we choose sets of symbols to follow, no matter how outlandish, and if we allow them to govern our rationality as opposed to vice-versa, the universe responds. The cynics of this age would call it crazy, but how can we be sure when the only fire we've ever played with is cynycism itself? These self proclaimed nihilists run about but are afraid to drop their belief in disbelief to even mimic belief for the hell of it.

Why don't we live erratically? You can. Maybe it doesn't seem as enticing to everyone else as it does to me. No boundaries, constant move-style scenes of manic activity and emotion, the feeling of sculpting an ingeniusly intricate plot round yourself constantly... Just sounds fun.

Hypocrit > Wow. I disagree with pretty much everything you've said.

I don't think half — actually, most — of the things you listed are forms of art at all. Perception is hardly an art; if anything, it's a tool for art. You use it to create your sense of the world, your beliefs, and so forth. I also disagree that any of my creativity was required in constructing similarity between gesture language and touch; most of those are conditioned into us through a variety of experiences, most of them from childhood. And I think faith in itself isn't an art, it's an act of creation, an artwork, which is a very significant difference.

(I also don't think art "suffers" in any way from popularization. I actually really dislike when people claim this; it's an elitist perspective that diminishes the views of the masses based on some half-baked notion that intelligence is only granted to the privileged few.)

The fact that we read is not an art. The fact that we read is a process of education. The actual process of learning to associate little black symbols with concepts and objects and principles is in no way creative. In no way does it require the learner to add something new to an age-old construct. Yes, okay, language is an art but that's a very different thing from actually reading. The way we read may be an art, too, but that too is different from the actual understanding of words.

So everyone has always been art. We just seem to have a problem realizing this. When we're frustrated we assume it's beyond us, the same with depression. This is method acting.

This is absolutely preposterous. You're completely disregarding the vast number of people who suffer from depression or other mental disorders on a physiological (not mental) level. To suggest that what they are experiencing is only some form of "method acting", something that they can switch off at whim, is actually kind of obnoxious.

Human interaction has no solidity to it, it's hardly materialist or scientifically empirical. You NEED belief. Like in a God.

Again, disagree with everything here. You don't need belief to solidify human interaction; you may not be able to reach out and touch it, but it's definitely apparent and provable. My friend is my friend because we meet often, because she makes me smile, because I can say things to her as a friend that I can't say to strangers. That's a very simplistic way of putting a broader, more complex notion but you get the idea. Through my understanding of the world, an understanding that is ratified by the vast majority of the mentally functioning world, I can prove in a number of ways that we are friends.

And I don't need belief in a god to legitimize my relationships, my perceptions, or my art. If anything (if anything), I believe in the world around me, which is a cheesy way of saying that I believe in the reality around me — that the table that I touch is actually a table, that it is green — and I believe it through myself and through the shared experiences of others. (Yes, says my roommate, that table is green.) But I'd hardly say that's belief — if anything it's something that is constantly proved again and again.

(This is probably gonna get moved to the Debate Usergroup, which means I have to sign up. Blug.)

Starting from bottom up.

Depression is created by chemical bons. Whenever your brain releases a massive chemical dump it is encoded in your memory. These chemicals bear specified stamps that remind the self of the exact process the body/mind took to create said chemical beforehand. In otherwords, depression is not a "disease" in the same form as AIDS, or Swine Flu(damn shame they renamed it, eh?), but a mental "rut" of sorts. Needless ot say it's been described as this but it's nature is the same as many other ruts that are not defined as "problems" in this culture.

Take for instance what we refer to as "love". Studies found that affection produces chemicals so similar to anxiety that in some patients they were finding the chemicals were actually identical. How did the brain know the difference enough to decide it "likes" affection but dislikes "anxiety"? Stamps.

These ruts can be programed out of the brain. I had suffered from depression for a very long time. I had a firm belief I was fighting something that was not of my own creation, that I was fighting a larger being with more power than myself. One day I woke up and decided to own my life and take full responsibility for everything that had happened thus far.

Through training yourself to NOT release a certain chemical when a certain stimulus is provided you can convince yourself of anything, to the point where it becomes a reality. Peopel can walk on fire. Seratonin? No problem. It takes control, training, and the will to resist cognitive temptations for hte purpose of training your subconscious.

Rationality doesn't come ot a child until around 7 years of age. By then the childs rationality is built on top of the large list of random prejudices and behaviors he or she has picked up from their parents. They use their rationality to defend these prejudices, which are randomly given by this big system we call a universe. These prejudices, in mere size, are chemical bonds and therefore NOT metaphysical principles by which the world runs. Therefore, creativity is needed to argue or "defend" reality.

Disagree? I don't believe what I'm saying right now, but I am finding a way to justify it that appears to match/outwit your justification. This right here, this interaction, is a conflict of creative personas attempting to wrest control of an imaginary dominion. Your sense of "self" requires belief, and creativity. No, not God, nothing that easy to discard.

Liberalism. Political views. These are not rational, they are built off of your personal discrepency which is created by, as previously stated, a random list of variable.

"And I don't need belief in a god to legitimize my relationships, my perceptions, or my art. If anything (if anything), I believe in the world around me, which is a cheesy way of saying that I believe in the reality around me — that the table that I touch is actually a table, that it is green — and I believe it through myself and through the shared experiences of others. (Yes, says my roommate, that table is green.) But I'd hardly say that's belief — if anything it's something that is constantly proved again and again"

Surely you misunderstand me, for otherwise this point would never have been made. God? Not God, faith. Dogma. Assumptions that can not be repeatedly proven but are assumed. Your friends is your friend because you meet often.

You meet other people often who you dislike, no doubt. Maybe not on purpose, but you mean them nontheless. If I start showing up at your work everyday around 2 to talk about my emotions and funny things that happened to be in the last six hours... You would find it very strange.

If your friend were to, you would find it fine, maybe tiresome after awhile. These are CREATIVE PRINCIPLES. You allowed yourself to feel "close" to your friend, you created an imaginary bond that said this person knows more about your random list of acquired ideas and emotional backlog than a stranger. For instance, the way this is being delivered right now.

If I sume htis whole thing up with "Christ is hte only truth we can know. It is in him and him alone we can rest our faith, and from him through-which all artistic prosperity flows." You would have a very different ACQUIRED VIEW on the first few paragraphs, eh? And, through this, a different view on who I "am". "I" have not changed, your view has. Because of events.

The way you read into events, the side you chose, required creativity. An innert creativity you've assumed as a personality. My definition of art is anything required creativity. My definition of creativity is anything done for the purpose of expressing. A personality is an interface through which to communicate with the world. This is expression.

MY point, which was ignored, is that we have become frozen in our personality. You don't see art decaying? I guess my reason for seeing this is... I am 18. I know very little about what I do. I read hte 2006 and 2007 poetry anthologies and can almost immediately emulate most everything in there, with the exception of Pinsky. I understand the devices, I can see how and why they wrote it. To me it appears easy. I turn on the radio. I hear a pop song. I can, without college training or perfect, name the notes, transitions, and guess where the song goes. I am not God. Surely you were about to point that out. I am not even egocentric. I think of myself as a hairless monkey in a very large zoo. But, if I can do that, and if I can emulate these things critically acclaimed by MTV and Harvard... something must be wrong. I am not here however to argue over whether or not our culture is deteorating. I am not even here to argue whether or not my expressed views are wrong or right, though I find it interesting and a little fun.

I am asking if anyone else here has seen these things, these patterns, and wondered if maybe life could be lived as an art, and not a series of randomly obeyed dogmas. You create characters for novels, some of you, do you ever adopt these characters yourself?