Throughout our waking lives we find ourselves in routine, not only physically but in a mental state as well. How do we step outside of that routine to perceive our own thoughts, and to try to understand the way of others thoughts. Some of us have up to 70,000 thoughts a day, is this who we are or is this just the nature of the collective mind and what we grasp and manifest from that mind is what belongs to us? Most of us choose a mental path of something metaphysical or appose it completely, still acknowledging it exists.
Religion for most is an otherworldly outlet and a way to be reminded of a larger whole. However, our society could receive similar benefits by being more involved in art and music. Because art and music hold no restrictions, and they have no influence on political motives directly, our social interactions around art are understood as opinions.Due to people’s ties with a certain religious belief often their opinions of what is socially acceptable and what their political beliefs are, can also be affected. We need to question our beliefs, our thoughts. This is where abstraction comes in.
Abstraction creates diversity in the way we view the physical world. When we look at something odd, questions are raised. This is crucial. Images apart from concrete realities help us to understand alternatives to what we are experiencing now, and how to observe an outside perspective. We often look at art and music as a persons reflection of their current state and events around them. Through creative expression and the questions that are raised we can challenge current thought patterns found throughout a society.
Throughout America we see religious icons daily, ranging from Christian to Islamic to Buddhism. It appears normal to most Americans. We often disregard this iconography beside other consumerist imagery, and do not question its origin and its subconscious effects on our society. We can start to think about ideas around religious truth verses scientific truth. Through all religious beliefs we find that an idea or feeling of faith does not have to reflect something proven through science, it is an experience being lived through your emotion and memories. Facts can only manifest and become fixed through a thinking being that creates truth. A fact refers to the justification of something existing or and event occurring when in contact with a normal sensory faculty. Truth is when we interpret and apprehend that fact. Meaning, truth is very much a function of the current mind that is interpreting the fact. Facts exist outside of the human mind, being essentially static, waiting for their recognition. So how do we provide evidence of something nonphysical, that every human experiences? We express it through art and music.
Most artists feel a connection with the subconscious, whether aware of it or not. This falls closely to the feeling of religious truth. Artists are becoming a vessel for their subconscious and possibly reflecting the thoughts within them, around them, through an act unexplained by science. The question of which where does the unconscious mind reside and if not physical matter then what is it? We can find it throughout cultures around the world, the universal language of music and art. Perhaps instead of following along the straight and narrow we should start to think religiously about art.
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