Creative Writing Final Response

[Another essay, same class as the last one. Relevant to both topics] Mitchell Creative Writing Block D What Doesn’t Art Do? What does art do, you ask? Why do you ask this when you can ask what doesn’t do? For as long as humanity has existed, we have been close with art; in fact, we are one of the very few species that creates pieces recreationally, not just for housing or mating purposes. Since the dawn of humans, with our primordial cave dwelling ancestors, we have drawn what we see, do, feel, fear, love, and dream- there is nothing we cannot illustrate in some way, shape, or form. As a result of this, art is part of our being in its truest form. Of course, everyone perceives the world in a different way- for if this wasn’t so there would be no art. Some see the world as their palace, whereas others see it as their hell. People all create art at different times for different reasons. In times of trouble, the brave and bold stand up to society’s fear and create pieces to inspire us to move onward, the artist’s piece a beacon in the figurative darkness of fear. Almost certainly the slogan “Keep Calm and Carry On” could be classified under this category, in a more hopeful sense. Other pieces still drive us forward, but not in the sense that we need just survive- that we must fight for ourselves and our humanity. Many posters hung during the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s revolved around keeping the soldiers strong and supplied well, or to inspire and motivate the oppressed Black and Asian populations to keep their heads from dipping into disparity. My apologies however, on behalf of implying that art is simply just pictures and painting, as this is most certainly false. Art can also be that of sculpture, architecture, writing, speech, song- essentially anything devised out of someone’s open mind could be classified as art. A truly revolutionary artist, in this regard, would be a man named Joseph Campbell, author of multiple books, most notably The Hero with a Thousand Faces. What Campbell portrays in this book is that all legends, myths, heroes, villains, and plots, in every single story, are exactly the same, and that they are a testament to our own lives instead of these false, meaningless tales people just make up. Campbell claims that they are all tied into the epic hero’s journey- an archetype. If what he claims is true- and having dug into it for some time I will most certainly concur- one could argue that all art serves the same purpose, and that purpose is to drive us to unlock the barriers that divide us from our true self. As time goes on, society, our issues and doubts about ourselves close us off from what Campbell claims is the eternal self, a spiritual embodiment of what makes us who we are. Once we break down all of those barriers, which Campbell claims takes multiple existences (reincarnation), only then will we be truly happy with ourselves and our entire being. Some pieces of art portray this concept right away, that we spend multiple lives trying to unveil who we truly are. Unfortunately, as we become a more modern, technological world, the essence of the hero’s archetype grows further and further from our lifestyle, and for the worse. I myself am lucky enough to have stumbled across pieces that are so bold as to display their true meaning. I do certainly enjoy visual and written art, but I find myself taking more out of a game, which happens to be a mixture of both. Two games that happen to jump directly into the thick of the epic hero’s archetype are Dark Souls and Dragon’s Dogma. Both games, albeit similar, take the challenge of explaining the archetype somewhat differently; Dark Souls, obviously the gloomier of the two, sees your character dying hundreds of thousands of times rendezvousing through a cruel world, where doom lies around every corner. And though your character dies incredibly often, they always return to life, ready once more to tackle the problems the world faces them with, and more importantly, you [the player] are armed with knowledge and strategy you did not have before, just as a real life reincarnation would yield. Dragon’s Dogma, though not as immediately glum, looks at reincarnation in a different light. Upon reaching the climax and conclusion, you find your true self and ascend to the realm of the god of the world in which you and all you know exists in. This god claims that you have come this far, and now you must do battle with him; in the instance that you succeed, he wishes to grant his crown to you, but only if you end his eternal life once and for all with a weapon named the Godsbane Blade. You can ask why he wishes this, and he response by saying that being eternal is only so good for so long- watching previous challengers fall and fall again only depressed him to the point in which he wished to live no longer, but he knows he has responsibility over all of existence in his realm, and to end his life with the Godsbane Blade before a new challenger succeeded him would lead about to the destruction of the world as we all knew it. So what am I trying to say here? I’m saying that perhaps it is not eternal life we seek, because eternal life of immortality and omnipotence may not be as good as the ancients we praise have cracked it up to be. What I have gathered is that there is no definitive answer to what all beings seek. We desire what we desire, despise what we despise, and nobody that can recognize human rights knows they have any say over changing that. What I am saying is that, as human beings, we are permitted to pursue whatever we please, and only when we unveil our eternal selves from the materialistic wraps we have bound those ones in will we ever be able to truly know what we want, what will truly make us who we mean to be.