Art & Materialism

I will start this entry with a quote from a famous writer named Oscar Wilde.
"An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them."
This means that a piece of art should not reflect the life of the artist, it should be life itself. A piece of work so molded can fascinate many of its beholders.
We are bombarded ever day with 'art' as they may call it. Modern music, books and other forms of art have to do with every day life and usually reflects the artist, whether it be writer, sculptor, composer. We have seen love, joy, pain, anger, sadness, insanity and many other emotions forged into art. But the true masterpieces themselves don't evoke one or two of these feelings. They evoke all of them.
Materialism has become so much a part of our lives, we cannot see the danger or taboo of it. This being the case, it has made its way into our art, and will stay there as long as we do not recognize it. Some would argue that since art should reflect life itself, and since materialism is now a big part of many lives, then 'materialistic' art should not be such a bad thing after all. True, as long as we realize it is such and do not idolize or reward it too greatly, because it can never be a real virtue.

Fatigue

We play and work with such enthusiasm. Until our bodies can take no more physically and mentally. Yet we strive to make our lives better, or more enjoyable. With each new advancement in technology we give ourselves more 'free' time. And this free time is spent doing things that make ourselves and others happy and relaxed.

Yet time is never truly free. We work for free time and would be lost if we stopped striving for this peace we allow ourselves every so often. We have gone, as the industrial evolution takes its toll, from simple farming from dawn to dusk, to filling our days with hundreds of complex and independent tasks that must be done simply to remain at our current status; socially, financially. And as the decades roll by, we find ourselves with more and more of our attention focused inwards, to keep ourselves from tumbling on the slope of life.

This is what I mean by fatigue. The tired ramblings on of societies that have lost perspective. Altruism is no longer the goal, with a curious pang of guilt I ask myself; 'Was it ever?' We have lost the perspective of the innocent, and materialism had become a deity of sorts. Given enough time, this phenomenon could completely desensitize us to our fellow human beings completely. And what would the world be without care and compassion, togetherness and acceptance.
We cannot allow this fatigue to put us to sleep or worse, self destruction. Morality and Altruism should be classes taught to school children. Because without constantly evolving education we slow down and/or stand still as a society.

Thank you for reading.

Double Standards

In this day in age, the idea of a double standard has become ... standard, so to speak. Even if most people do not agree with that fact in the name of equality, there is little we can do about it.
In any case, double standards are needed because of the fact that equality in our society is almost impossible. Attainable, yet far out of reach. We need to, as a race (and by race I don't mean black/white/oriental, i mean mankind) come to a greater level of self-understanding and spirituality. Materialism instead of altruism is what we are taught as children and what we preach as adults. And that is wrong.
We are all on different levels, plainly some higher on this imaginary scale than others. And we need double standards to attempt to bring everybody to the same level. Even if the ideal "level" has not been reached by anyone, we strive towards it and will reach it, eventually, far into the future, we will reach a point where we need no double standards because we are all truly equal. Most cases of double standards are ridiculous and absurd, yet it is a way for people to become more equal.
It also matters greatly who is deciding or declaring the types of standards to be applied, where and how. We cannot have a man who does not understand himself or what he is doing, make decisions that are important to all of us, and that is what is happening all around us. People make decisions not based on your perspective, but based on theirs, likely one that differs greatly from yours.
For example;

What do you call someone who explodes a bomb and kills innocent people?

– A terrorist.

What do you call someone who drops a bomb from a plane and kills innocent people?

– A brave Air force pilot

Two different points of view, both righteous from their own perspective, yet both wrong when one thinks outside the box.
So when thinking of double standards, one must be very careful what to criticize and which to endorse. And it is not as righteous as some think to completely deny certain double standards are not malicious in any way. A word used to often is oversight, we must redefine and apply it.

Thank you for reading.

Thoughts on Creation

As it is my first post, I thought why not start with the beginning. Here are some imaginative thoughts on creation and life.

Humanity as a race has always had the tendency to believe it is somehow special in the greater sense of things. We tend to believe this as a species, and as individuals. Our knowledge of technology has grown beyond our ability to perceive. Some of us are still naive enough to think we have been created by an invisible man in the sky who has the best of intentions for us and will protect us.
This of course comes from the people that govern our many religious bodies. In return for salvation, they ask undeniable faith and loyalty with 'peace of mind and promise of salvation' as a reward. Many people believe God created Life, the Universe and Everything. And it gives them solace to think that He is out there watching down on us. I will speak of the true purpose in life for faith in a higher power in more detail in the future.
We were created, not by accident, as some say, but by inevitability. Had the events of the past not happened, replaced by conditions hostile to the development of man kind, we would not be here. Which is to state that the events of the past and present, dictate the future.
In my perspective, it saddens me that as a modern industrial/technological state(world), we are still blinded by what is out there, and we remain poisoned by ideas of two or more thousand years ago.

You might say we are in the process of waking up from a long dream filled sleep. Some sooner than others.