some thoughts on the task of living artfully

i've been thinking a lot about how to go about with the general task of being a good person and an artist in the world, and trying to foster some kind of net positive change in the long run. i've traveled around the us now for some years, talking to people of all sorts that i could run across, mostly bums and bohemians to be sure, but still trying to take it all in, and come up with some sort of median perspective that these people can share. i'm interested in what unites us. the things we need as human organisms that are central and basic. i'm thinking about creating spaces - people need spaces to meet and do things, to talk and dream together and plan, and what i've witnessed across the board is a wholesale scaling back of public space, with greater restrictions on what you can and cannot do there. there is an implied threat, that you cannot violate the city's idea of what a public space is for, backed up by an armed guard. i group this phenomena with a larger trend that i like to refer to as "the war on difference."

think about it. you have all these streets, all these sidewalks, and squares, leading to homes and shops, jobs and venues of entertainment. but that mall just can't float in space. it needs the public places to be valuable. all the businesses need all of that space in which travel from here to there is designated, but it would seem that more and more, travel is all those spaces can be utilized for. meanwhile parks have signs that prohibit rallies and gatherings without permits. well, what if a bunch of free individuals want to get together in a public place, and sit down and have a big picnic and give away food to bums, and not disturb anyone? how could you stop them from doing that? well you probably run into health codes, and ordinances of where you can sit and for what reasons, and if there's any central leadership or some kind of organization promoting it you've got someone to come down on it. all you can do is be moving from point a to point b. if you can just sit down, and take in all the people running around, maybe watch a guy do a magic trick, or listen to some folk musician play his guts out, or witness any kind of public spectacle that is a demonstration of free expression, you are essentially threatening the surrounding businesses, the movie theaters who would have entranced you for a couple hours at 10 bucks a pop. the shoe store that you could have lost yourself browsing through. the restaurants who would prefer you to not just buy some fruit and sit down and eat with your friends on a bench. all of these interests have some kind of sway on the city government who makes the rules about what you can do where, and if you're not contributing to the local economy you're taking away from it. the police will enforce these rules like they have nothing better to do. nevermind the cultural value of people doing these things, enriching peoples' lives, that doesn't have an economic metric to calculate and therefore doesn't really exist.

i have some ideas. i want to create tiny happenings, a movement of small scale spectacles that are simple enough to intuitively understand, at a size that the common passerby can participate in. i want to focus on things like food and water, and expression and entertainment, things that grab people on a visceral level that transcends aesthetic and culture and gets down to humanity at its core, the social animal. gatherings for anyone. flash mobs and art pranks, surreal and practical, all the same. a potluck in the park, initiated over myspace messages and sms txt's and email and hand bill flyers. a giant cardboard box fort on the campus. a "peanuts" style free psychology booth. a mass masturbation march on the white house. anything that people can get behind without arguing over causes - causes have divided us. i want to be fun, and spontaneous. i want to smile and compliment a stranger who looks sullen. i want to leave every person that i meet a little more motivated than before, and of course i want to be a bit more motivated by them as well. i view each transaction in society as a challenge - an opportunity to rise to the occasion of being an authentic human being. i think we owe it to ourselves and our future as a species. will you go out into your day with your head down, complying with the routine motions of your predefined spaces that you inhabit? walking into the super market, not upsetting anyone, filing in line to the check out point - all possibilities narrowed down to a predictable range - no better than a piece of some grand machine that only services you in an incidental manner? or will you demand more from your experience of humanity and society, and ask for just a little more each day out of your necessary interactions with the rest of the world? i hope that you encounter a place some day, that will encourage something like the latter to stir within you, and that you will have the audacity to scream, or speak your mind, or debate and question, or fall in love. i hope you take that trip to an unknown place. when you feel like you've arrived, you'll be in good company. there are more authentic living breathing free people in the world than we might give credit. good luck.