Ara Ara’s Mind

{Author’s note: I wrote this back in late 2023 having just moved back home. I always found myself wanting to create but never having the inspiration. I found this very frustrating as nothing around me seemed interesting enough. I was angry when I wrote this, keep that in mind, but I think I make some good points. The things we are drawn to do are sacred and have meaning to use. It’s hard to see our preferred art form not have any clear useful meaning. Enjoy and keep creating anything you love.}

The more I see and the more I watch and learn and hear, it is becoming increasingly clear that we need to take art back.

We are being bombarded with bad stories about the same shallow things. About things we might have never even experienced. Which just makes me wonder: why consume it?

Art, as in things that come from the act of creation no matter the form, used to stem from your own self, your own experiences. It came oppression, misogyny, racism. It came from being on the outside of a world you would never know. It came from finding the beauty, the comfort in what your world looked like. In how different it was. In how fulfilled you had become even though you didn’t have the niceties other people could afford.

Real untapped creativity that stems from hurt, from pain, from a life well lived has become rare. There is a feeling trapped in that art. There is something raw and real seeping out of it. It is hard not to see. It is hard to not feel it, to not let it change you.

Personally, it inspires me. Mainly, for me, it’s the idea of baring your soul, your life to everyone you’ve never met. The idea that that your feelings, your thoughts are so strong they cannot be contained. The idea that regardless of your platform or the things you make you are a person who has thoughts and experiences that are just as important as everything else. That is the kind of art I strive to make.

This beautiful act of creation had been stripped from us. Art and media have become commodified. Bland, boring pieces of emotionless media that says and does nothing for us. They are the same old things, with the same old topics, with the same old people. They strive to tell us who to be and how to be it. And we accept it. Because, like many things, we have forgotten. We have forgotten the feeling of being a person. We have forgotten the feeling of being seen and heard. We have forgotten what art is supposed to be. A release.

I am not implying that taking art back would fix the world or that art itself has never been abused like this before. But as we come to a head in these late stages of capitalism, it’s important to take note of what we’ve lost and what we need to reclaim.