Art is very old- Margaret Atwood

Art must be as old as human existence (I think) and as long as we strive to exist art will too in one form or the other. Be it in temporal celebration of inscrutable happiness or savored permanence of inextricable suffering.

An excerpt from her speech that she would have given at Davos this year:

Like you, I wait with eagerness to see what new sorts of art the younger generations will produce. Whatever astonishing forms or media they invent, they won’t stray far from their age-old themes, which are those of humanity itself: its struggles, its tragedies, its relation to its biological home, its loves and triumphs, and above all, its sense of wonder. I wish for these young artists what I wish for all of us: a cool head in a crisis; a knack for lateral thinking; grace under pressure; and a sackful of good luck. We will need all of them.

Full text on her blog, here.

Update: Happened to brush with some more of Atwood on optimism. Was too clever and timely to not include here.

"Anybody who writes a book is an optimist. First of all, they think they're going to finish it. Second, they think somebody's going to publish it. Third, they think somebody's going to read it. Fourth, they think somebody's going to like it. How optimistic is that?"

Chinese Whispers

As children we all played Chinese Whispers at some point of our childhood. We huddled and sat in a circle and one person, to begin the game whispered a sentence of his/her choice into the ears of the next person. Then that person whispered the same into the ears of next. The last person in the circle had to speak that sentence loudly converting what it had been a whisper so far. And surprisingly, the final sentence had been modified from the original version. Something like life, where we change from what we had started as through various communications with different people and different stages of life. Each association and communication left us with one of the Ms. We meandered, modified, mollified, mocked, menaced, maneuvered, messed, mended, managed, mangled, manufactured or made peace with it. But somehow, each association with its communication (verbal or not) with another human being or cluster of human beings left us transformed, good or bad. Essentially, we transformed from where we had begun originally with myriad of changes, each time we crossed path with others. Does it mean that we as a race are organically connected clusters? And our every action and deed makes it better or worse not just for ourselves but others as well who may be connected with each of us with one or more degree of separation?

So, how we started as children and then went through series of whispers connections in the form of learning, unlearning and growing up into something we are today and what we will be tomorrow. No?