One of Billions

Questioning what constitutes success in art.

It often amazes me that in a world full of billions of people we as individuals will point to other individuals, singular persons out of these billions of other people, and say to ourselves, “this is a person who has a special kind of artistic talent that speaks to me.” We will then spend fractions of the limited time we have in our existence with these other persons, absorbing their art, considering their thoughts, and allowing their souls into our consciousness.

There are so many people with so much talent, yet there are so few moments we ever have in life to appreciate it. There are so many people who might better speak to us who will never be heard, who will never be seen, who will never be felt, nor appreciated. This is but a thin layer of the chaos of existing.

As billions of people go about their lives trying to add meaning to their existence through artistic expression, so billions of others go searching for validation of their feelings through artistic expression. Billions of souls are putting out while billions of souls are pulling in their own experiences and ideas of existence. In an unstoppable wave connections are made, ideas are spread, and somehow a handful of these artists are found worthy of what we may call success, or recognition, or whatever we use to attribute meaning to art.

Meanwhile billions of billions of other artistic expressions disappear into a void, a space of emptiness where art becomes part of an ether, an underlying hell. These expressions are undoubtedly felt somewhere, somehow, by someone, and surely those feelings were as valid as anything else anyone ever felt in their brief span of existence. Yet ultimately such art merely serves as a counterpoint to that which we label success.

We as a whole pull some favored few pieces of art out of their moments of existence and hold onto them. They are success. Contrasted against them is the deluge of expression sucked down into the hollow beneath our collective consciousness.

And so as generations pass the power of some expression remains while the rest is lost forever.

Together have we made the right choices? Does the art we hold onto matter more than anything else ever made? Is there any possible way we could tell if things should have been different?

In this maze of existence it seems unlikely we could ever make all the right choices, yet it seems unlikely we could ever have done anything different. Recognition will continue to be made. Is such success predestination, or is it conscious decision?

Regardless, this is the world we have made. We all keep going forward, without ever stopping. Still, might we reflect on the choices we have made?