We are all bored out of our minds.
So – we look for more every single day.
The balance of nature has been offset for so long – our survival instincts to find food, shelter and water – have no where to go except the aisles of our abundant grocery stores. And houses of all shapes and sizes fill the land as far as the eye can see. Sure, we have to have money to provide all of this, but earning a paycheck does little to fulfill our innate need for survival.
{Source: homesteadingsurvivalism.myshopify.com on Pinterest}
There is little reward felt at the end of the day for a job well done because the job(s) most of us do have such intangible results. Instead of filling our days with hunting and gathering – surviving – we fill our days with computer screens, virtual meetings and fuzzy, beige-y gray partitions.
Even those of us who don’t work in the traditional sense (housewives, like me!) – while sometimes it may feel like we are traipsing through the muck and mire of a vast frontier, in actuality, we have homes filled with running water and electricity keeping our food cold, our clothes clean and our bellies full (at least most of us do - I do realize that people do without these things even here in the US).
When basic survival isn’t at hand, it seems to be in human nature to constantly look for ways to fill our desires and to constantly look for more desires to fill.
Don’t get me wrong, I am just as spoiled and comfortable – and quite possibly bored – as the rest of you! I love sipping my iced coffee in my air conditioned living room as I tap away at the keys on this laptop. In fact, I love it!
It’s not like I think civilization should reverse itself to fulfill our bored survival instincts. But I do think it’s interesting to watch these instincts of ours try to busy themselves and take note of what they produce.
{Source: masikawa.tumblr.com on Pinterest}
Human survival instincts may just well be the foundation for the great creative minds out there!
Art - in all its glorious forms – could very well be the expression of our human survival instincts.
::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: :::
Where do you think Art & Creativity are formed? Are some people just born that way, or is a factor of survival? The tortured artist is a cultural stereotype…do you think there is some truth to it? Do you really need to endure and survive something extraordinary in order to be an artist? Or does “ordinary, modern human existence” qualify as surviving something extraordinary? I’d love to hear your thoughts! Oh, and Happy August to all!!
