A creative path called to me, and I’m so grateful I answered.
I still remember the look on my guidance counselor’s face when I entered his office, my expression twitching between timid and tranquil. After weeks of trying to scribble out a roadmap to the future, it seemed I’d finally found a beam of enigmatic confidence. Against every ounce of sensible career advice he’d given me, I stood before this bespectacled man and said…
“I’m going to major in theatre.”
All of the mandatory personality quizzes and skill assessments I’d been forced to take were fixed, and I knew it. They’d directed me and my peers toward a string of jobs algorithmically deemed best. My passion for words and high English scores revealed a knack for communication. Extracurriculars like the Drama Company, Writing Club, and Fashion Society suggested some caliber of collaborative prowess. According to this assessment, I would excel in law, advertising, psychology, sociology, or journalism. I wouldn’t fit into society’s cookie-cutter mold perfectly, but with some appropriate nudges, I would fit.
My guidance counselor stared at me, quietly mortified. He tried to make the list of practical paths seem appealing, and even emphasized the value of using art as a means of dispersing the stress gathered at my primary job. He suggested community theater, writing workshops, and weekend activities to satisfy the irresistible urge to indulge my creative spirit. According to him, to survive in this world, I’d have to confine it to doses, breaths of air after drowning in societally-sanctioned saltwater.
In this moment, some part of me wanted to be upset with my counselor.However, gazing into his eyes, made weary beneath the weight of his wisdom, I saw genuine, earnest fear. Art is not an easy career by any means. It is uncertain, devoid of contracts that guarantee healthcare or weekly paycheck promises.To pursue art is to risk everything, from groceries to a reliable roof.
Every tutor and mentor I’d had up until this point wanted to steer me toward stability, and in most cases, it can be achieved through surrendering to the corporate pipeline. They’d likely been instructed to funnel students this way, because it could be perceived as irresponsible or negligent to suggest otherwise. Education may strive to cultivate perfectly-trained soldiers for the workforce, but it is also dedicated to supplying teenagers with the tools they’ll need to evolve into self-sufficient adults.
I couldn’t bring myself to be angry with my counselor, but still, his attempts to sway me away from my heart’s calling only made me more sure of it. Despite the possibility of horrendous failure, I’d never felt more brave. “It’s worth the risk,” I said to him. “The only thing scarier than an unstable life is a life lived denying what I know I am. I am an artist.”
After an agonizing forty minutes, he released me back into the locker-lined catacombs of my high school. I felt light as a feather, and more excited than ever to send out my applications. Months of questioning the earnest whispers of my heart came to an end in one fell swoop. At last, I was an artist, and I was headed to art school.
Our World Discourages Artists, And It’s Positively Insidious
Our world appears to have a vendetta against the creative industries. Generations have been programmed to see them as foolish, immature attempts to avoid the burdens of growing up. To them, to grow up is to abandon the splendors of childhood, one of them being boundless imaginative exploration. In their less-than-humble opinions, art is a waste of time to make and to consume.
I cannot even begin to understand blindness of this caliber. Art is the glue that holds our world together. It is a beautiful vector of connection, a paver of paths to self-actualization, and healing that transcends even the most highly-effective forms of therapy. Art shows us who we are and what we love. It holds our deepest fears and our wildest dreams. It embodies our ability to ascend beyond the constraints of this physical plane and perceive an infinite multiverse of possibilities. It is a record of the past, a chance to capture the present, and a way of constructing the future.
Most importantly, art is what makes us human. On some level, every human being on this planet is a creative, because to be human is to create. Some create with computer keys, acrylic paint, or graphite. Some create through numerical equations or chemical combinations. Regardless of the tactical instruments and varied applications, art flows through us. It is delightfully unavoidable. It is deliciously inexplicable, because magic of this kind doesn’t exist to be explained.
There was a time when I thought the disparaging of art was a product of narrow perspectives, but after reading works (of art) like 1984, The Handmaid’s Tale, Fahrenheit 451, and Brave New World, my theory has changed. I now see attempts to minimize art’s importance as a conspiratorial attempt to dilute the human soul. Society is intent on turning every one of us into a cog in an enormous clock. With each tick, we are encouraged to become robots who see the world in monochrome and build in hollow shades of black and white. With each tock, we are trained to deny our mystical creation abilities, rendered weak, miserable, and malleable.
Once our species evolved past its primal survival stages, art became a marker of our capacity for higher consciousness. How can the powers that be think it sensible to drive us back towards an era of mindless survival, just organized into cubicles instead of deserts and jungles? To a writer obsessed with dystopian literature, it appears as a purposeful attempt to regress humanity on a grand scale. A society interested in progression would encourage art, not label it as useless.
Is it possible that some less-than-trustworthy string-pullers are working to steal art from the masses, thereby stealing their ability to expand, explore, and think independently? I can’t say for certain, but I can say that the same people who brush art off as babbling nonsense are the first to ban works of art when they threaten the status quo.
There is simply no denying that art is the most influential force on the planet. In times of war, propaganda came almost exclusively in artistic forms. Films, books, and posters were designed specifically to sway public opinion, because art has a way of dissolving one’s defenses. When it comes to cultural cultivation, art is more powerful than politics, because art can be made indirect.
Hollywood reigns supreme when it comes to cultural movements and social developments. Actors are worshiped like mortal gods, directors are paid insanely well, and movie theaters act as modern temples of ritualistic disappearance into realms just beyond the dimensional veil. Theatre isn’t too far behind. Most theatrical shows are treated like luxurious events, aristocratic in a way even if the venue is casual. The artists who bring these exhibitions to life do so with obsessive passion and prowess. The hours are harrowing, the commitment is life-dominating, and at the end of the day, each show is ephemeral. These people can’t even bring home a tangible record of what they’ve created, and audiences recognize that they — too — receive only brief access to a piece that can never be replicated the same way.
Still, thousands of hours and dollars are spent in exchange for the fleeting moments where two realms collide, whether for the stage or for the screen.
Writing, visual art, film, theater, music, makeup, fashion… they are the bones of human civilization. Every single day, we interact with art in some capacity. Every single day, we are influenced by art in some capacity. One’s favorite movie acts as a loyal companion in times of loneliness. One’s comfort book is a gateway to escapist relief in times of despair. We exercise to music. We exist within architecture and interior design. We adorn our bodies with pieces once mere images in an artist’s mind.
We are so seamlessly tied to art that we become the art we expose ourselves to. Life mimics art and art mimics life because the two are intrinsically connected. To be an artist is to study, engage with, and strengthen that connection. To be an artist is to be a covert shaper of society. To be an artist is to be a freer of the human mind and a testament to the boundlessness of the infinite self.
I can think of no field more valuable.
Art Makes You Happier and Healthier
I tend to veer toward the metaphysical and cosmic when I discuss art’s value, but it also has some incredible benefits on this physical plane. In the previous section, I discussed how art shapes society and expands the soul. In this one, I’d like to provide some psychological, social, and personal ways the study of art can enrich one’s life.
Creating art heals. There is endless evidence to suggest it. Engaging with creativity is a surefire way to process complex emotions, explore one’s psyche in a safe way, and release a cocktail of neurochemistry that can elevate the mood. We all know how important dopamine and serotonin are, and we also know how awful it is to swim in cortisol.
Consuming and crafting art lowers stress hormones and boosts happy ones. Art classes act as consistent, scheduled reminders to dedicate real time to the unconscious betterment of one’s psyche. Therefore, I believe the study of art inadvertently provides the foundation for a healthy psychological state.
On the social front, it has been proven that those who regularly consume and create art are more empathetic. On one hand, it promotes self-empathy, but on the other, it opens the door for an expanded capacity to connect with and show compassion towards others. Art is subjective, just as humans are subjective. Exposure to it asks us to consider perspectives beyond our own and regard them with a certain caliber of respect. In art school, you’re bound to encounter peers with vastly different takes on vastly different topics, and those takes will surely be reflected in what they make. Studying art asks one to study humanity in a way that transcends judgment and strives for objectivity and tolerance.
Finally, on a personal level, art requires us to study ourselves. I have found writing to be more effective than therapy when it comes to observing negative patterns in my life and creatively concocting ways to escape them. Though it is rarely a conscious thing, my art never fails to clue me in to the state of my heart when viewed in retrospect. The horror I write tells me what I’m most afraid of. The romance I write tells me what I yearn for most in love. The struggles I put my characters through so often mirror what I’m personally facing. In stories, it is my responsibility and pleasure to help them find a way to heal. Thanks to those stories, I’ve discovered ways to do so in my own life.
The study of more technical, practical fields sorely lacks these benefits. They are so focused on creating worker bees that they overlook the individual value of each “bee’s” mental health, communal connections, and self-development. Art is one of the only career paths that marries the three, and proceeds to offer so much more.
If Your Heart Calls For Art, You Should Honor It
If you’re on the fence about embarking on a creative journey, or wondering if it’s worth it to return to academia in pursuit of a buried passion, I implore you to follow your heart. Sit with your truest emotions and drown out all the other voices. People will come from far and wide to douse you in their opinions, feelings, and fears. However, your life is yours and yours alone. The yearnings of your spirit are yours to satisfy.
Family and friends who love you may try to sway you away from decisions that seem like risks. Deep down, I believe my high school guidance counselor cared about me. He didn’t want to see me struggle, and like many of my loved ones, he’d been programmed to view art as an unstable career I’d likely fail at. He urged me toward the safer and more predictable option because he thought it best, and I can’t blame him.
I can say that, like many, I’ve witnessed too many people move through the motions of life in a zombified state. Tethered to careers that wither away at their zest for existence, they lose a bit of their glow each passing day. The starlight leaves their eyes. The wonder drains from their essence. To me, it’s a terrifying descent that I never want to experience.
My heart calls for art for many reasons, but the most important one is that it simply makes me happy.
Every day in my life is filled with sunshine so long as I have the time, space, and energy to be creative. I’d rather make myself vulnerable to a bit of instability than sell my soul to a job that will steal too many hours for a barely livable wage. I’d rather not know how things are going to work out, but relish in every single unpredictable step of the journey, than have my decades here on Earth mapped out to dull perfection.
If your heart calls for art, just as mine did, I believe you should answer it without fear. Taking the risk was scary, but so far, it’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever done. Studying art allowed me to discover the uncharted depths of my inner self, explore the infinite cosmos, expand spiritually, and become a more authentic human being. It’s given me a deeper sense of empathy, a grander capacity to connect with others, and a consistent space for self-love and healing.
No matter how many folks try to tell me I might have taken the wrong route, I’ll never doubt that this was the one for me.
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