Art as escape, art as reality

There’s such a deep and delicate divide between art and ideas as expressions of reality and art and ideas as escapes from reality. Their status and function in each of our lives hinges on our inner state and attitude, our relative clarity of vision and intent whenever we engage with them, whether as creators or appreciators. I’m convinced that for most of us, most of the time, including me, the escapist intent, the desire to use art and ideas to abstract away from living reality, is dominant. I could cut out more than 90% of my reading, viewing, thinking, and writing, and lose nothing of value. In fact, I’d gain clarity and peace by lopping off one of the prime fuel sources for the mad monkey mind.

This is a key self-recognition, because that monkey mind is so very good at chattering to itself about how the exact opposite is true, about the supposed supreme spiritual value of continuing to wallow in mental and artistic representations of reality instead of just dropping the whole thing and resting in the present reality of what simply and actually is. This primary, unmediated Real is what that misguided outer search via artificial means is really after all along.

Ramana Maharshi famously observed that reality is simple, but we make it complicated. He said the average person won’t be content when told the simple truth, that “the kingdom of heaven is within you,” and will instead demand the elaboration of complex religious systems. The same holds true for our daily engagement with all of life. Life is simple. Reality is simple. It’s all given right here, with no holding back, immediately and totally, all of it at this moment. But we feel that we need to think something, say something, do something, create something, see/feel/hear know something, before it’s really real. The ultimate cosmic self-punking.