Saving the world through a mustard seed.

It's 2012. The world is pretty mad. Political instability, economic crises, war going on even though we have been talking about peace and the brotherhood on man for a while. Technology is on a role, each new gadgets does something even more incredible and therefore you do even less. And then there is world hunger and world obesity going on at the same time. There is no Berlin wall falling or Chinese Revolution or the discovery of new lands happening, but anyway you see it, these are crazy times.
I am sure not to be the only one to have had this thought of changing the world, of saving the world! I have heard it so many times its almost a cliche actually. But what can we actually do?
I found a way, a something that gives me hope because it is so ethical and sustainable that looks like a way of saving the world.
Perhaps you have heard of organic farming, perhaps you think its something far removed and practiced by hippies or something. Its more than that. Organic farming is a way of fixing so many of the issues that make our world so crazy.
Organic farms are first of all, completely ecological and don't use oil based pesticides which are a big source of pollution (the fact that they don't use these pesticides is what makes them organic). They work with the ecosystem and allow natural environments to be what they are meant to be. The land stays fertile and your food is healthier. Because this farms are focused on local action and the people who work in them are mainly volunteers, this farms create a real sense of community. You know you grows the food you eat! Therefore you have more communication and become more involved with the area where you live, which means that if the council wants to build a bridge for example, on top of a beautiful garden, you know what's happening and can take action. Imagine if that happened around the whole world!
One of the reasons why there is a famine in Africa is because much of the water that can be used for growing crops is redirected for growing palm oil and roses and different things that Africa exports to Europe (mainly). The idea is that the money made by selling the exported goods aids the economy. The problem? People don't have land and water to grow the food they need to survive! Its a terrible situation that could be fixed with thinking locally. The big businesses are taking it all, we need to reclaim it back and food is definitely a good place to start. Caring about organic food means that you will add more vegetables into your diet and less crap, which also targets the obesity problem, by eating healthier and having a relation with what you eat. My claim isn't that you should go work in an organic farm, but if you have time, perhaps its not such a bad idea. Also, money has a voice now a days, if you choose to buy local organic produce rather than mass produced 'who knows what it's in it' imported stuff, you will be doing a bit both for your health, and for the world.

This is a great organic farm in the edge of London, check it out: http://www.organiclea.org.uk/

Art as an explanation to everything...

To write about art philosophically is to me, to match two seemingly different worlds that treat seemingly different things. But they are not so different; both art and philosophy exist to fulfil the same desire, the human desire for meaning. Art has been a major part of human history and development, art has been our way of saying ‘we existed’. Thus art has walked hand in hand with humans throughout our millennia of experience. No one can tell you more than a philosopher that truth doesn’t come naked, it comes in disguise. Humans have since forever tried to undress it and the only way to make sense or explain the unexplainable is art. The history of art is the history of symbols and the history of symbols is the history of human life itself.

For a while I thought that Western rationalisation of thought had killed philosophy as such. Western reductionism limits that scope in which we can speculate about human life, as if nothing could be a possibility unless it logically made sense and fitted under a microscope. Logic to an extent cuts the wings of human inquiry. At a public level, this seems fitting and very rational, but at a personal level, we believe in profound realities and that’s were art and other numinous aspects come in. Art fills in the infinite pain that we have, because of our lack of understanding, because of our helplessness in the universe. Art heals our burns like cool water, we look, hear and feel symbols that reach deep into our collective human conscious and unconscious and whatever experience. Art that touches your pain is incomparable. Art reminds us that we do understand, only that we understand with different eyes.

The reason why I think art is so important is because it keeps its status of enigmatic, even in our times dominated by science and technology. Artist are treated different, as carriers of the truth but not important enough to be fed. The job of art is to transform our experiences, sensations, feelings and thoughts into symbols, into music and into something that can last in the memory of humans. In Richard Dawkins words, we don’t just leave behind genetic material, but we also leave MEMEs, little bits of our creative self, in the shape of art, like things you don’t think are art, like the way you like to fold your tissue. Art goes beyond the objective, beyond the times, as if its symbols gave us a little more access to eternity. It is not a coincidence that Religions are charged with art, art is symbolic and symbols are signs and expressions of our millennia of accumulated human experience, the pain is no new, the doubt is not new, art is not new.

Feelings and sensitivity are given to us just by being born, same as reason. Artists use them and transmute these into symbols, colours, sounds, words. The job of an artist is continuous, like experience. We are constantly receiving something from the external world and that has to be transmitted. Everyone should do art, constantly, any type of art. It’s better than psychotherapy, it’s the coat of varnish that will truly help you visualise the mess that you have been turning your head into. Expressive, representative, free of worries, creative, personal, impossible, based on reality, that doesn’t need to make sense but ends up making more sense, neutral, angry, happy, passionate make art. 

Create and Connect

Sometimes, when I become too sociable and go out too much I loose touch with creating. You start talking and mingling and of course, and the best one: sharing with people. But this strange thing happens to me you see, that I start to drift into sharing with people so much that I neglect doing. Is this a general occurrence  That you become a bee that flies from flower to flower, rather than a working bee that collects the honey. This little metaphor tries to say that I have stopped creating... for the days I became sociable. All sorts of strange thoughts then start to creep in when you don't create. The fear of not knowing what to do next. What to follow work with. Why. How. Then you start to compare. Big mistake. The emptiness of the words as you tell people you write poems/songs/paint things when you haven't done any of those things in a while! Breathe. Collect yourself. Remember your mind needs recharging, it needs to take breaks.

Creating is a very similar process to so called mingling. You do it for the people, you share with them, ideally your honest thoughts and feelings. I do both out of love for them, out of curiosity about them, out of a need to learn about them. And thus they are not so dissimilar. But at the same time, time runs like sand, its time to get to work. Some artists become hermits in a way, they isolate from people and dedicate to their work. I work better that way, but people are part of the world, I work for people, can't obviate people, shouldn't avoid them.

Thus the issue becomes a matter of balance again, of course. How to create and connect? How to go out and see the humans in action and also create in the peace of solitude? How to come back to the point of creativity among the seas of activity?
Well I am certainly looking for the answers and will let you know if I have any luck.

Free writing on a train...

Truth is? Well anything I can say about it, I can only say it symbolically. I cannot escape the symbols. Can you?
Like an invisible cage of some flimsy sort, a filtering film that changes all, ever so slightly. But all becomes different nonetheless. I remain on one side of the film, trying to be acquainted with purity, sometimes...
Looking at the people next to me, they look at each other, imitated behaviour. I watch them, they do as their neighbour. I watch them watch me. I smirk. The important remains invisible, symbolically.
Maybe its the strong influence of my right brain. Disorder, Art, Innit.
If I wrote my story word by word it would still be a symbol. If I wrote your story word by word, I still wouldn't know you.
Red blood.
The table across of me was full and now stays empty. The people are gone. I replace them with a water bottle, an orange and a book. The landscape escapes my avid gaze. I try to trap it with my memory but its gone already.
The books. The Art of Loving and the Art of Living. Gender swapping. Psychologically we are everyone else at some point. We try to avoid the thought that we could or can be the worst. Love so hard. Act with more direction. Pay attention.
Plant good seeds.... Metaphorically and physically soon. Well, at least create a new melody! Brighter colours. Vivid colours. Full colours. All before the winter comes.

(somewhere in Scotland, I believe)