Patrique

I wrote those examples because that was the type of work I enjoyed doing myself in Photoshop (until i got disgusted by it).

I think my concern is more directed to what this glorification of the world does to every day people, like my donkey-self. I don't deny the philosophical aspects or existential parts that art can bring to human consciousness. That's all wonderful, but what about that girl who gets anorexia because of glorified pictures of the women's body? Should we deny these consequences of glorification because some of us can see the subtle nuances. Maybe i make myself more stupid than i need to now, but this is how i feel. I agree with you, the reason i wrote that is because these concepts only resonate with me on an intellectual level so far. I don't feel or experience it at all (working on it though!). I've no plan continuing being a donkey but i must say i feel kind of donkeyish in my life at this point. Yes of course it does, it can still present the world in a manner that confuses people or make them see the world in a destructive way. The glorification of suffering has created self pitying emo's for generations.

Because it hasn't always been like this. As i wrote in an earlier response, i loved making art, the value in the beginning was that it was fun as hell. Later it had to do with the positive impact it could have, it was also fun too at this point. Now it's a mess between that it isn't enjoyable anymore at all, and the feeling i've that i'm doing the world a disservice by doing art, even if i would have enjoyed it, since i don't see the value in it. "I want to help create a better world, but art doesn't seem to do the trick." I want to come back to the feeling i had before. Maybe i just need to work on myself and stop trying to morally justify shit i don't understand. I know making movies is my call, i still think about it 24/7 all the time, but anxiety gets the best of me.

Exactly! That's my experience too. Unfortunately i'm in monkey mode 99,9% percent of the time. My issue is that i thought art could change people. Make them see beauty, or get value insights, regardless of state. I'm not saying it can't. But my story goes something like this: I felt my life purpose from a young age was to create art that could change the world. That would make peoples life better. I made a lot of films that were very appreciated. But around my 20's anxiety took a good grip of my life, and art either had no effect on me (as you talked about) or really negative ones. I started to look back and realized that the art/media that i had consumed from a very young age also had formed a lot of very weird beliefs in me, especially about love. Art wasn't what i though, i thought. I'm enough self aware to not make this a truth claim. But is was, and still am, my experience of art. And i don't want to create art that has that same effect on other people as it had on me, so my fears about that totally ruins my creativity as you can imaging. And that hits the nail on the head maybe. And is what i suspected in some ways all along. It's me who has to work on myself, it's not art that is the problem. If i get to the state that i feel that art can richen my self in any way again, i'll gladly do art again i feel like. I recognize also that in the beginning I didn't do art for any one else but me, because i loved it. But i formed this "change the world" thing in a response to my very moralistic mothers expectations of me, i think, or society or whatever. It would be irresponsible for me do something just because i loved it. I had to be a good boy and help the world. And that is still something i can't wrap my head around in all honesty, even though i've seen Leos videos on morality for example. I feel it's irresponsible of me doing something i love, only because i love it. i NEED it to be about something greater to feel that i'm justified in doing it. And why do i feel that i need to be justified? Because otherwise i feel like an asshole who didn't do anything in my life to try to make the world a better place. And i want to try to make the world a better place. And actually all the talk about great ambitions, life purpose and higher values that Leo talks about confuses me even more in this. Something in me wants to try to make the world a better place, and i love(d) making art. But in my neurotic world view they don't blend very well. Please note that i'm not trying to state anything here about anything really. I only express my experience is.

I'm not sure at all about reality. My formulations are maybe clumsy. It's not about how things are or are not, but more about how i experience it and people like me. I don't think they want to deceive people at all. That's wonderful! I've an ayahuasca retreat booked a week from now with 5-me0 DMT as a finally! ^^ Hopefully something can come out that.

Greetings from Sweden. Hi! I'll get straight into it. I had ambitions to become a film director since i was 10 years old. Massive anxiety and shit has made me question that ambition and my motivations behind it. So maybe my questions here is more of a mental masturbation procrastination type that just gets me stuck, but i'm interested in hearing your thoughts on this. The last 5 years i've been wondering quite a lot if art is a moral thing to do. Let me explain: I'll agree that the artists job is to glorify reality. But what the low conscious people like myself gets from it is not what Leo talks about from my experience. Introducing; "The Disney lie!". A collection name from the glorified version of the romantic monogamic love i was brought up with. "If i just rescue my damsel in distress, i would live happily ever after". It all looked so compelling to me with all the violin music in the background and birds singing. But then i grow up and realize that i can't find this version of love anywhere. "My relationship is shit compare to the one in this rom com". I feel betrayed. How can Disney brainwash me as a child to form this delusional view on love. This same disappointment happens let say if someone wanna see the Great pyramids of Giza. They'll open up their travel magazine and see this beautiful picture of the pyramids with an crisp wide angled lens. The colors has been enhanced. The sky is replaced. All the fat german tourist has been photoshopped out of it. It looks fucking epic. Then you go there, and gets disappointed because this glorified picture of reality makes the "real" reality looks so much more shitty. Same goes with pictures of the apartment you were interested in. All the photoshopping that is going on in the model industry. "Well, we're just glorifying reality a little bit, thinner waist, bigger boobs, no zits, smooth skin, that's how we all WANT to look, and this can be a motivation to strive to that! :)". But that's not how most people experience it is it. Higher conscious people are maybe able to separate glorified versions of reality and be amazed by how we're able to glorify this shit so hard. But the wast majority of us, i would argue, gets bummed out because we can't look like that model in that magazine. We can't separate the glorification of reality from reality, we expect reality to correspond to what we've seen on our screens. But it fails every time and reality just looks like a shittier version of the glorified version. Even if i could separate the glorified illusion from this illusion, my experience is still that our reality doesn't get elevated by art. It stays the same, only now i've something unreachable i can't get to. Further more, (I should stress before i write this that this is only my experience of art, i'm not claiming either or, but i realize if i want to create powerful art, i need to change this limiting beliefs somehow, i don't have the motivation to create powerful as long as i feel like art can't change anything, or even is destructive to humanity). The guy who puts up a dead bird in a museum maybe thinks all kinds of pretentious things about his art, as Leo said, "it reflects life and death yada yada. I'ts super important stuff". But really, if you want to create positive change in the world, is this stuff really changing anything? I want to create nonsensical humor skits on YouTube for example, that's what i want. But i can't help to feel how irresponsible that is to a dying world. How can i morally defend that to myself? Conclusion, I want to create art, but i don't see the value in art, i don't experience the value of art. Art for me is a distraction from engaging in the "real world". It creates a fake version of reality that confuses people. It's an temporal escape from pain at best. I want to have noble ambitions, as long as i see art in this manner i can't be doing art, all the passion is lost if i feel like what i'm doing is making the world suck more.