Yes, but is it art? (Another viewpoint)

I've lived a lot of my life "in my head."

Even when living with someone else, working a "creative" job and seeming to interact socially with a great many others, I am capable of spending large quantities of time zoning out, creating and visiting my own world, living several other lives than just the one in which I inhabit a corporeal state.

In the past several years, however, I've been making a move. I've been finding paths into the other parts of my experience: my body, my emotions, my "spirit" (such as it is).

No question, graduate school has helped me see -- from that beautiful "meta" perspective -- both the means to and the value in doing what I've naturally been inclined to do. But there's no debating this chicken-egg question: I was already on my path to "enlightenment," if you will, before I came across graduate school.

I want to say at this juncture that I don't like the word "enlightenment" because of it's connotation as being somehow "better" than what came before it. And yet, I am limited by vocabulary and unless you will indulge me in the creation of new words, it is the best I can do at this point. I feel a similar limitation in using the word "spirit," as I sense in its literary traditions an infusion of religiosity and inherent "meaning" to which I do not personally ascribe.

And yet, there is within me some indescribable connection to the concepts of "spirit" and "meaning" and "enlightenment" with which I have become acquainted. They mean something to *me* that they may not mean to others.

I wish I had at this moment the temerity and the gift of brevity through which I might adequately express my thoughts on these topics. But I don't.

So let me say this as I can (and please accept both my philosophical shortcomings and my cowardice, however temporary those states might be):

Whether consciousness is a "process" or not is irrelevant to my world view.

I was confronted with this issue last week, on the day of my aunt's memorial service. I had asked my uncle what he thought about the service after it was over, and he replied, in part, "Well, you're the avowed atheist, so I guess I don't understand why you think there's *anything* more to us than just our brain chemistry. I've always taken an evolutionary view myself, and I think we're nothing but chemicals. Would you actually tell me otherwise?"

Truth be told, I was intoxicated when I made my reply, but it does not change when I'm sober. And so, although intoxicants prevent an accurate quote, this is the heart and soul of what I told him:

The truth is: I don't know *why* we're here or what happens after we die, and I don't really care. I'm interested, of course, but it doesn't matter. I'll never know; we'll never know. Although I call myself an atheist, that's more a way of explaining a complex idea to simpletons than it is an accurate statement. 'Agnostic' gives too much credence to the possibility of something I don't accept, while atheist seems too blanket a statement for my openess to possibilities. In truth, I don't know what created the universe, I don't know what created "life," and I don't really care.

What I do think about the issue: If there is an intentional organizing force in the universe, I cannot accept the possibility that it cares enough about whether I believe in it or not to either punish or reward me when my life as I know it ends. Any "being" that does care, in my opinion, cannot by definition be "divine." It has to be flawed, to have a character defect -- or as we call it in psychology, a personality disorder -- to actually give a shit whether I believe in it and worship it or not, and therefore, any being demanding such a thing from me is not actually worth of my worship.

If there's a "God," as described in the Bible or other religious texts, I feel compelled to take my chances and say, "What*ever*, dude."

That said, I cannot help but regard our consciousness with curiosity. I think we are *more* than mere brain chemistry, if for no other reason than there is a universe that exists and leaves itself up for intepretation by said brain chemistry. The fact that we all have different perspectives, that we are capable of unique thoughts and actions, gives me pause. It has left me wondering what might be outside of our awareness, what our limited brain chemistry might prevent us from knowing in the way of our five senses but which might be experienced through ways of understanding that we have disowned or denied or simply do not register as directly as that of taste, sound, touch, sight and scent.

I regard that unknowing as a curiosity. It does not, however, impact my final belief about what we are *doing* here.

I see each of us as a work of art. For what reasons has our brain chemistry seduced us with desire, filled us with fear or allowed us the connection to others that imparts such joy or deep sorrow as can only be found in relationships? I cannot say. I can only tell you what I see.

And that is an ongoing creation -- each moment, each interaction, each broad arch of a relationship or of an attitude toward self and others, each personal philosophy -- that we call "a life." That composition created by the individual human -- and all the attending social and environmental forces on that human -- from beginning to end, from birth to death.

From birth to death. I'm talking about what happens in between. *That* is our art. That is our passion, our love, our jealousy, our revenge, our despair, sorrow, joy, hatred, striving, failing, our layers upon layers of all of those and more. It is what we create each day between Day One and The End and how each of those days adds up to something.

Isn't it fascinating, when you think about it, that among the billions of humans -- trillions of us, really -- who have walked (barefoot, sandaled, bound, loafered, high-heeled) on this earth throughout all of human history, no two lives have been identical? That no two people have thought the same exact patterns of thought, done the same exact jobs, loved the same exact others, had sex the same exact way, felt the same exact orgasms or eaten the same diet?

Our uniqueness is not just a fact of our existence, it is our highest form of art. (That some of us are "artists" on top of it -- creators of painting, sculpture, words, music, etc. -- does not preclude *all* of us from being artists of our own lives.)

Not only do we bring an urgency, a vibrancy and a potency to each moment -- no matter how "mundane" it appears, in the scheme of things, each is a culmination and thus no less or more important than any other -- we also bring our longings. We are all trying to get *somewhere.* Exactly where doesn't matter. Whether we are totally conscious of our goals doesn't even necessarily matter (although the best theories of my future profession suggest that people have "better" lives when they are more aware of their own motivations). Rather, it is in the act of our everyday creation of ourselves that we find the expression our personal artform.

There is no expression that is better or less than. Each is what it is. We are what we are. We do what we do.

Some critics -- and we are all critics -- would look at us and label our expressions as "weak" or "daring," "ugly" or "powerful," "scandalous" or "erotic," "pious" or "thorough." The world can hold within its scope the expressions that are Hitler, Martha Stewart, John F. Kennedy, Thurgood Marshall, Henry Lee Lucas, Pee Wee Herman, Molly Ringwald, George Bush, S2, The Asian and your dear UCM.

Although I am reluctant to equate any of us to Hitler, that is exactly my point. It is not a matter of one expression versus another. There's ultimately no good, no bad, no judgment. Each of us is just one among the infinite expressions that comprise "humanity."

Art has the power to provoke praise or revulsion; on different days, the same piece can evoke different feelings in the same person. In that way, each of us qualifies as a work of art.

So what is the point of questioning "what's next"? Perhaps there is something serious that happens after we die, that we all will wish we were somehow better prepared to handle. Or perhaps there is nothing.

What difference does it make?

To me, it makes none.

We can't know what, if anything, is beyond this life. But we can live what we have. We can accept that we are our own creators. We are not just the artist, we are also the canvas, the gesso, the paint, the framing (ornate? rustic? modern? hand-crafted? machine-made?). We are the wall on which we hang. The lighting by which we are illuminated. The gallery itself.

We are the ones who determine whether we are on display 24/7, if there's a cover charge to view us or if we want the broadest exposure possible. We are the background music, the wine served on opening night and whether we demand a specific price or are willing to throw our fortunes to the wind by submitting ourselves to auction.

Although we might have a message or intent, we are ultimately not responsible for how others perceive us -- whether they see in us intensity, subtley, ostentatiousness or irony. We simply create ourselves. Each moment, each day, something different.

And when we meet in relationship, we have both the creation of ourselves and the creation of what we make in relation to others. That too may be, as the critics call it, a thing of beauty or a script fit for Jerry Springer. How wonderful for us when it's a thing of beauty. But how equally expressive when we end up throwing chairs at each other in syndication in perpetuity.

It is what it is. We are what we are.

I call it all "art."

I don't know what my uncle thought of that. He stared at me, a bit slack-jawed, through my little lecture. He said nothing when I was done. It was late. We were emotionally spent and intoxicated. This is how I tidied up my thoughts for the day. But I still wonder what he thought.

Did he think I was pandering to him to lighten the dark mood that has settled on him in the wake of my aunt's death? Did he think I was trying to assuage some pain? Did he think I've been wasting my money on a "fancy" education that's doing nothing but priming me to "work with losers"? Did he agree? Did he see the openings, the acceptance and love inherent in my ideas?

Most of all, did he understand that *he* is one of the reasons I even have this perspective? And can he see my aunt in it?

If each moment and each relationship becomes the media with which we create our art, surely they both contributed to what I have made of my life. As have many of you.

I see it as a gift from one to another. My hope is that what I gave to my aunt, what I continue to give to my uncle and what I give to the rest of you seems like a fair exchange.