When Are We and When Will We Be Human?
We are by nature symbol makers and symbol users, for evil or good.
I have always been a believer in the “hiding in plain sight” adage. We take what we see as a factual matter, to be a “matter of fact.” If it has become common place, it seems to be “common” to us. Common not in the sense of rare or without value, but as holding no secrets, as concealing no danger, as promising no revelation.
To the American mind works of art are appropriate, obtainable and unseen. They stand aside from one’s actual experience. They are what they are. They make elevators more peaceful. They cover the white monotony of interior walls.
Our treatment of art may well stem from a sense that it is an end-product. It has gone through a process of creation. Symbolic materials have been shaped by “the artist,” the finisher of the product.
It does not appear to ask anything of us. It works no magic and births no mythic power. The issue is very clear. To be fully human, we only have to eat, procreate and secure safe shelters. We seem to believe this. But such “believing” is a clawing back to the animal existence we long ago left behind.
We can believe that a human life is more than satisfying creature comforts and necessities. Or we cannot. Those of us who hold such a belief find their lives immeasurable richer, but only if they engage with the meanings of symbolic forms.
The fully human creates, embraces, and provides meaning, or meanings to life. For this “reach” we employ symbolic tools. This is instinctive. This is who we are. It is how immensely we differ from our larger family of life on this planet.
Works of art have the force and power to literally change our lives. When we take them up, work them in our hands and minds, we become the new builders, creating new passions, dreams and beliefs.
Perhaps this is what the ancients meant when they said we were created in the likeness of God. It is our nature to be creators, to discover and pass on beauty, harmony, and wonder.
Art awakens the sleeping spirit. It restores consciousness to a life-lost body.
We are meant to dance with the Gods. Objects are mere things. When seen and manipulated as symbols they become drama, ritual, law, philosophy, and dreams. The world burns with meaning. The future can be imagined and formed.