1. CREATIVITY is human prerogative
2. CREATIVITY is first practical — then transcendental
3. The practical value of creativity is solving practical problems. It’s as good as well it solves problems, as good as hard problems it solves
4. The transcendental value of creativity is how effectively it elevates consciousness, and how high
1. CREATIVITY is human prerogative
HUMAN = ADAPTABLE = CREATIVE
What sets humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom is ADAPTABILITY.
ADAPTABILITY = creative problem solving = CREATIVITY
2. CREATIVITY is first practical — then transcendental
We were first creative to SURVIVE.
It is only once we have survived — that we could bother with thriving.
Art, poetry, philosophy, humour — is what we do WHEN WE are ALREADY SURVIVING WELL — and it’s time to do some THRIVING.
It is essentially making use of excess energy, excess creativity.
And it is done for it’s own sake, or meta-sake, rather than for purely pragmatic reasons.
We do ARTS when we THRIVE — and in doing them we THRIVE only more.
We don’t do arts BEFORE we thrive, BEFORE we have taken care of our survival.
The notion of a “professional artist”, and likewise “professional thinker” and “professional poet” — is utterly ABSURD.
You DON’T DO ART to survive. You don’t THEORISE to survive. You don’t PONDER and REFLECT and CONTEMPLATE to survive. You DON’T SING to survive.
3. The practical value of creativity is solving practical problems. It’s as good as well it solves problems, as good as hard problems it solves
“Professional artist” is an oxymoron.
ART solves no problems.
ART is the last thing to do to survive. If that’s why you do art — you’re doing it as an escape from your own problems of surviving.
ART is useless, really.
AND ART is invaluable really. It’s USELESS to survive. It’s invaluable to GO BEYOND. Read on
We worship this perverse ideal of an artist, a creative. We may not even like art ourselves — and yet we still idolise artists. What a joke.
Most artists are but artsy. They are actors. They’re brilliant at playing the role of an “artist”. At creating the appearance of an artist.
Do you know who REAL artists are?
ENTREPRENEURS.
With few exceptions of few TRUE artists — it’s ENTREPRENEURS who are the REAL creatives, in our society.
Entrepreneurs and businessman and problem-solvers.
This is the FIRST outlet of creativity. The original intent of creativity.
Don’t fool yourself that you need ART or PHILOSOPHY to ELEVATE your spirit to LOFTIER REALMS.
You’re BARELY SURVIVING right now. And so it your favourite artist, high on whatever poison they choose these days. And so is Schopenhauer, a fucking misanthrope.
Yes, you can do ARTS and you can CONTEMPLATE — in spite of BARELY SURVIVING. You can do it quite successfully, as far as quality of your creative output is concerned.
But this is NOT where your creative powers should be going right now.
SOLVE YOUR LIFE FIRST
CREATIVELY
Beautifully
THEN transcend
4. The transcendental value of creativity is how effectively it elevates consciousness, and how high
It’s once you’re surviving is that it’s time to take interest in THRIVING
And in EXPANDING, ELEVATING, TRANSCENDING
In truth, once you’re surviving — the only way to elevate is to go beyond material
Excellent Naval’s quote:
“The problem with getting good at a game, especially one with big rewards, is you continue playing it long after you should have outgrown it. “
See we’re so horrible at surviving that we barely manage. We live paycheck to paycheck and take poor care of our health.
When we finally see some success in those endeavours — we start obsessing over one-upping ourselves endlessly in that single things we’re good at.
Hence more muscles and more cars. I’m embarrassed even to have to write about it.
Winning the game of life-living is about winning the many mini-games that life comprises of. It’s not focusing on a single mini-game and trying till death to get a better score. That is a loser, not a winner.
Once you’re surviving, which is innately a material problem — the next level is TRANSCENDENTAL, SPIRITUAL.
The goal now is to elevate your consciousness.
ART is creative taken beyond material:
-ART and philosophy — is becoming aware of one’s own mind and the nature of things
-ART and psychology and spirituality — is becoming aware of one’s own spirits, one’s psyche, one’s feelings
-ART and poetry — is becoming aware of that which is beautiful,
-ART and philosophy and politics — is becoming aware of how to maximise well-being in the society
etc
What ART (arts) ultimately is — is CONSCIOUSNESS.
With pop art reflecting collective consciousness .
With nieche and boutique and fringe and alternative reflecting counter-culture, or reflecting a more specific kind of consciousness.
Etc.
And ultimately ARTIST himself making ART — reflects his own consciousness.
Which itself is to greater or lesser extent a reflection of the world’s consciousness, in varying degrees, and “world” can mean the entire world, or it can mean the world around him
CONSCIOUSNESS like ART, and ART like CONSCIOUSNESS — it’s an exploration, an evolution, a CREATIVE process.
Consciousness evolves and art evolves,
Collective consciousness evolves and art which reflects it evolves,
You strive to evolve your consciousness — and you STRIVE to evolve via art you admire and via art you make.
Thus arts (and philosophy and poetry and all the rest of it) is an EXPLORATION of CONSCIOUSNESS.
(it’s reflection of consciousness, AND the process is an exploration of consciousness)
Finally, with this framework in mind,
What even is is “good art”, or “Bad art”?
NOTHING INTRINSICALLY is “good art” or “bad art”.
Just like GOOD AND BAD don’t intrinsically exist. There’s only levels of consciousness. All evil is ignorance.
So there’s no “Good art” or “Bad art” — there’s only the degree to which particular ART matches particular CONSCIOUSNESS .
And “the transcendental value of art is how effectively it elevates consciousness, and how high”
This yields itself to following conclusions:
ART too enlightened is garbage. No one will understand it therefore no one will care about it.
And likewise for philosophy and spirituality and writing etc etc etc
ART too common, making NO effort to AT ALL ELABORATE on a particular consciousness, NO EFFORT to anyhow CREATIVELY CONTRIBUTE to that consciousness — is also garbage.
POPULAR art is by definition mediocre — in that mass-appeal means appeal to the AVERAGE CONSCIOUSNESS of the world — which is always below what the world is capable at it’s finest.
But it is of course “Good” enough to slightly elevate the greatest number of man
Finally “GREAT” art is obviously no enlightened art. It must precisely appeal to enough number of important-enough humans who dub it “great”.
The ONLY true measure of ART’s quality and value is in relation to specific level of consciousness — and how those two INTERACT .
Thus a GREAT ARTIST is one who in ART-making succeeds at elevating his consciousness the most.
And then elevating someone else’s consciousness the most
And great ARTWORK is one which has EMERGED IN THE most FIT PLACE AND TIME — to perfectly reflect that zeitgeits, that consciousness, and to elevate it