Technicolor, Rhythmic, Delicious, Imaginative Raving Beauty

To create art of any kind is an insanity of sorts. If one really thinks about it, the search for beauty in one's creative endeavors is really a waste of time. Why? By itself, art in any of its mediums serves no significant biological or tangible practical purpose worthy of the time, energy, and pain spent in its creation. So, using the cost-benefit analysis so prevalent in good decision making, it becomes clear that the compulsion to create and the corresponding act of creating art runs contrary to a productive use of one's resources and as a result can be considered a wasteful form of madness.

Creativity can exist solely for the purpose of meeting needs. For example, it took creativity to imagine and then build the first shelter that didn't rely on a cave. It didn't need to inspire awe or illicit an emotional response. it just needed to provide shelter from the elements and protection from the cave bears, saber-toothed cats, and packs of wolves that wanted to remind prehistoric man that having an opposable thumb didn't automatically give them the top spot on the food chain. So, why did they decorate their dwellings? Was it out of boredom? Did they use decoration to let other prehistoric people know that one could have a good time if they grunted 867-5309 to Slag, that Neanderthal hussy who was happy to put out for nothing more than a greasy hunk of mammoth and a handful of berries?

No. Decorating the dwelling was done for some other reason than to communicate who was an easy club over the head and drag by the hair into the cave for a rutting. After all, we eventually developed sophisticated written and spoken languages that could concisely proclaim who had been ridden and was enthusiastically willing to be ridden more than the town camel (humped he-he)/donkey/horse etc. These written and spoken forms of communication were much more precise and didn't require the extra energy or time that the abstract thinking art elicits to understand.

So, why did Pope Julius II (who would later invent a frosty creamy, orange flavored drink enjoyed by mall customers everywhere) feel that the Sistine Chapel needed to be embellished and why was he further compelled to pay for it? After all, it would've been more practical to use the money to, oh say, feed widows and orphans, right? Then why did Michelangelo agree to risk his life lying on a rickety scaffolding sixty-eight dizzying feet above the ground to paint the ceiling of this church? Oh sure, the gig paid well, but I guarantee they didn't offer health insurance. It defies logic and supports organized religion's centuries old bad habit of ignoring those it should be helping in favor of showing off.

What about the other mediums? Well...

Literature and Poetry: Do we really need stories? After all, what is a story, but a falsehood born of a fevered imagination? The written word should be shackled in the iron bonds of the truth. More substance and less art should guide what gets written. As to poetry? Seeking a rhythm or a rhyme is simply a waste of time. Say what you mean, mean what you say.

Music: Music is too chaotic and in many cases, it can be dangerous. Being loud and making noise runs contrary to our instincts for survival. Did our prehistoric ancestors belt out, "Everyone Walk the Dinosaur" at the top of their lungs for shits and gruntles? No, it would've scared away their game and announced their presence to predators. In short, if they wanted to eat and not get eaten, silence, not drum solos was required.

Cuisine: Food is fuel. It didn't need to taste good. It just had to keep you alive while keeping parasites at the minimum.

So, why do we waste our time in the mad pursuit of beauty and self-expression? Shouldn't our energies be spent in more concrete, beneficial pursuits? Maybe. However, as a species. our existence defies what seems practical and beneficial. In fact, at our core we are agents of chaos. All that we are defies order and logic. Why have emotions? They get us in trouble and often blind us to what is easier. We are the only species on Earth that creates things in order to destroy other things. We seek to do things simply because we refuse to think that a thing is impossible. Other creatures don't complicate things and accept what is and live within what is known not in what might be possible.

In short, human beings as a species live in a constant state of defiance. To humanity, reason is often unreasonable. Logical limits get pushed or are outright ignored. Emotions send us down unknown and dangerous paths when a more calculated and emotionless perspective would be safer and more productive. Art in all its forms defies reason. Creation of art is often an act of self-destructive absurdity, that to the outside observer appears to take more than it gives. After all, the term, "Starving Artist" exists for a good reason and history is filled with artists who go unappreciated until they've passed through the digestive tracts of their worm grave mates. Still our chaotic nature demands that we nurture an equally chaotic madness that exists in color, sound, taste, and at all degrees of our imaginations. The Cheshire Cat's words continue to ring true, "We are all mad here" and we are wrapped in the madness of both our humanness and the love of and the compulsion to create art that is a symptom of that madness.