Art, Passion and Selflessness

Its not rare for us to see talent that exists all around us, but its very rare to witness the intensity of passion that goes into the making of their art. You sit in your cubicle, doing a 9-5 jobs, punching numbers and what not into your laptop with pressure mounting, each passing day. What is the only thing that liberates you amongst all the seriousness of life, personal or professional? Art! That's right.

It could be a song like Young Man Blues where Keith Moon is destroying your soul or could be an Eric Clapton's duel with the face-filled-with-gazillion-expressions John Mayer or a pleasing wallpaper of a Picasso painting or even a powerful dance video like Mery & Maks' Freestyle Finale for DWTS 2014!

You know why it is liberating? Because we all have in us a passion to do something great in life. And this passion, even if its for a blink and miss moment is triggered by the power of these other people's passions. Emma Stone was right when she said the below in La La Land.

Coming to the movie, this one 32 year old man put our conflicts of pursuing dreams vs love on a canvas and made it a magnanimously ultra-interesting picture that was filled with colors and music. While one part of it is how you relate to the story as a regular person with extraordinary dreams with no time for love, the other part is realizing how much of a trance-inducing genius  the guy really is. Truth be told, everyone of us is blessed with some sort of a gift from the Universe but rarely do we make time to utilize the abundant resourcefulness of our minds. It is during that one moment of our lives where we are exposed to the the pervasiveness of art, that we get amused and inspired to do something for ourselves. Twisted, isn't it!

 There is so much all-succumbing love for what they do as artists and the way they understand their gifts! Joe Bonamassa's amazing rip-your-heart, superlative guitar playing at the later part of his collaboration with Beth Hart is the closest I have felt of how one's brilliance is reflective of their passion. 

When Eric Clapton spins his magic to honor his deceseased best friend's life during the last few minutes of "while my guitar gently weeps" at Concert for George, you know it has the power of shattering the piece of earth you have your feet on. 

It has always amused me to no end as to how one can bring a piece of them to their art without letting other factors affect you while doing so. Case in point, Amy Winehouse. She had a depressing life, she was booed off stage after she rejected to perform under the influence of alcohol and drugs, she had a pain that never left her and yet she had the strength to weave beautiful songs out of her experiences. When a normal person is depressed, he/she never leaves home, let alone think of making it a motivation to bring out something beautiful out of it. "Back to Black" is such a sad song that suggests hopelessness of a love forgotten. I know I am not entirely wrong if I said passion brings to fore a sense of selflessness! Everybody great, could be Janis Joplin, Kurt Kobain, Amy Winehouse, Eric Clapton, all cut out of the same fabric, gave to the world a chance to understand their genius. If you think about it, the end goal of any artist is to entertain. And that to me is selflessness. Sure there is monetary rewards, sure you become famous, but the kind of efforts that produce this source of entertainment has to be excruciatingly tiring. If not, there would be more artists than there are audience for it.

And think about the difficulties of coping up with life when fame hits you, when the expectations increase at a faster rate, when the pressure is more than what you can handle. Or think about difficulties of picking yourself up if it doesnt work the way you wanted it to. Think about lives of people like Kurt Kobain, Britney Spears, John Bonham, Heath Ledger, Ozzy Osbourne, Jodie Sweetin and the likes. 

There is an excessive consumption of drugs because of deprivation of a normal life and the necessity therefore to transcend to another world, there is resolving identity crisis, there is no privacy, there is helplessness and despite all of that they still stick to their art. Some give up and some shrug it off and move on to their next project.