On Art and Death

  Yesterday, the world got the news of the passing of David Lynch. Although I am very much familiarized to his work, I have to admit I hadn't gotten to watching much of it yet, and still I greatly admired him as a person and artist.
  His approach to art, whichever the medium was, was just awe inspiring. A true show of the extent of boundless and pure human creativity, courage and wonder. Courage because, as you may have perceived by now, being an artist, a truly dedicated and honest artist (not just a "content creator", a pawn in the Cultural Industry's capitalist game), takes an insurmountable amount of courage. To express oneself so freely and passionately to the world. To love, to ache, to rejoice, and to bleed through your art, is the most daring of endeavors.
  In a time so riddled by irony, to the point of the advent of the so-called "post-irony", David Lynch reminds us that it is better to be earnest, and that we don't always have to keep explaining ourselves. Commitment, to our work, to our life, to our thoughts, feelings and opinions, is something we seem to have forgotten about, no matter how hard we keep pretending that we haven't, and irony is just another way that we find to keep straying away from it.
In the rushed living pace of now, there is not enough time for commitment. We spend so much of our energy balancing whatever we have to have going on, that we forget to focus and commit to much anything, and even when we contemplate such an idea, we now lack the energy (and, honestly, the courage) to get out there and do it. We convince ourselves that we are going to, some day. But when will this day come? Won't it be too late by then? Can we afford, looking at the current state of the world, to wait?
  Also, his death makes me think of so many other great minds we have lost recently. Vivienne Westwood, Thierry Mugler, Rita Lee, Fernanda Young, Bowie, and so many others. It scares me that these fascinating artists are dying, and barely anyone but the corporate-approved content creators manage to slip through to the mainstream. We are actively watching the destruction of the great minds of our generations, but no one is managing to fill in the gap they leave behind. Will we, in a few years, watch as the arts are completely consumed by corporate "artists", forced to "consume" their content, with nothing meaningful getting actually made and circulated? Will real, honest and true human art be relegated to the dark corners of society and the internet, while AI brainwashes the unsuspecting masses?
  You may be waiting for a hopeful end-note, claiming that "No! This is totally not the future that awaits us!", but unfortunately, it is. Unless we act, unless we commit, unless we build up the courage and fight, and dare, unless we keep on doing what AI could never do, express ourselves, pour ourselves out into our art, our lives, our communities. Unless we do something, we will bury our culture and art along with these great artists past.