You know that saying, "sick and tired of being sick and tired"?
Psychology calls this scarcity, which is the same as survival mode, where you are nearly drowning in all the necessities of life and you need a breath of air.
During the supposed Dark Ages of European history, there were little to no scientific, artistic or cultural advancements....
Lots of factors showed that people were just trying to.... survive: a lack of quality of life.
Today, it is the opposite of that problem but somehow we're also barely surviving. Full-speed-ahead surviving. We are drowning in information and NOISE. Mindless scrolling. Going through the motions. Drinking from a fire-hose and still thirsty. Too many activities and too much to do and too many lists. The kind of overwhelm that has a choke-hold on your life. Fast-paced scarcity.
Never enough time.
Never enough money.
Never enough connection.
But yet, we have too much of all the wrong things. Mountains of junk. Useless garbage promising enjoyment. Kids and adults with an insatiable appetite for all the "right" material goods. Toys that can't stand the strain of being unwrapped, as Earl Nightingale says, because of their mass-produced cheapness.
What is the answer?
Art. I'm not talking about museum-worthy art, or famous art, or even fancy art.
I'm talking about the creative act of making art, as a childhood rite of passage. Yes, even the celebration of their art by displaying it on your fridge. It shows that you value them, no matter what the "finished product" looks like!
Product-oriented art is that which focuses on a completed piece for display. As amazing as that is, the other type is process-oriented art, which I personally feel has more merit than ever before because the journey has so many messy lessons.
Aside from all the research validating why kids need art, I truly feel that art-making takes away the stress of the real world and lets a child be an innocent being. Oddly enough, people often don't participate in making art until they are out of the survival mode state of being. We must go beyond the monotony of barely treading water and truly search for life and connection. Connection can happen.
