Original Thought
by Jason Alan
Originality and creative thinking should not only be grandly celebrated, but the artists who possess exceptional aptitude for showcasing it through whatever chosen media of expression should be applauded and praised lovingly from the rooftops of the highest buildings and the apexes of the most massive mountains.
A black and white photograph of flowers can generally be perceived to have at one time contained yellow and red and orange before it was all digitally converted to grey, or it can easily be considered to have been shot with a camera that was designed to only process black, white and various combinations of the two. Or, it can be imagined that it was taken in some unknown alternate monochrome universe, where blue and green and pink only exist in the mind of a clever fiction writer who, if resides in a world similar to ours, is in all probability either misunderstood or dismissed as frivolous by many of those who are presented this idea. It could also be suggested that the flowers do not actually exist in reality, but are the creation of an artist who is talented and/or technologically inclined enough to make everyone who viewed the picture automatically assume it had been taken with a camera.
The concept can be taken even further in presenting a scenario that the photo itself does not exist at all in the physical realm, nor does anything that we see, breathe, hear, touch or smell. This intensely vast and arguably infinite universe, from the most colossal galaxies to the most miniscule of quarks and neutrinos and everything in between could merely be an insanely complicated construct of the collective thoughts of hundreds of billions of minds, or even the mind of a single being so advanced that the totality of our perceived existence is a trillion year long dream, and we will be instantly blinked away upon awakening, the only memories of us eventually fading away into oblivion. And not so much as a single tear would be shed over the loss of our entire universe.
Or it could just be a black and white photograph of flowers. What do I know? I’m just some thirty something jagoff from Texas who likes to write shit.
Artists and writers should not be excessively praised in case it gives them delusions of grandeur and they become Artists and Writers instead of human beings with a certain talent. Sacred Monsters.
Well, there is that aspect of it…
I didn’t mean to come over as fundamentalist, but artists and writers often think of themselves as something special, fed by the adoration of their admirers. Even more so for musicians and film stars.
True, we forgive them a lot for their talent, but at bottom they’re human beings, some much more fucked-up than the average 9-5er. So I praise something well-done, beautiful, truthful, but have no illusions about the person who made it.
Good point. I think what was in my head was a little different than what came out. That happens with me sometimes. I think people should stop celebrating mediocrity, which the entertainment world is bursting at the seams with. To cheer original thought (and by that I mean different than what most people think, because how many thoughts these days are truly original?) and stop giving our entertainment dollars to fucking hacks. But really, the main point of this post was to exercise my writing skills, which no one has yet addressed. So I guess that means I need to practice more.
Ah! You should have said.
Thanks for playing ‘guess what the fuck Jason is talking about’.
Keep writing, dude! Originality is just like any other skill – it only gets better if you work on it. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks. I will.
But the shit you write is so good!
Thanks. I appreciate that.