Art is Political
No one person, one ideology, one government, one movement, one way of thinking is ever going to change the complex challenges that face humanity. I don’t think it’s designed that way. It doesn’t mean that we don’t fight the good fight for just causes. If anything, this election shows us in many ways how divisive and disconnected we really are. And how many people hold contrary views to ours that don’t feel like they’re caught up to the year 2020.
I want us to remember the most important thing, that ultimately you are walking your own path. The only person you can transform on your own path is yourself. You’re only responsible for how you think and the energy you put out.
I’m very political when I teach because art IS political. To make a difference in the world, to make art and make things that mean something, it must be political because that stands for thinking about things in a new way. And I’m not talking about political – Democrat or Republican – or political – left or right – I’m talking about political in terms of creating change. That’s the real understanding of legislature, policy, activism, advocacy, that’s who we are as artists.
Something that I keep coming back to and what I’ve failed at miserably, is how do I move through the world with more compassion and less projection of my averase, disconnect, negativity and hatred onto others. It’s easy to do this because then you don’t have to take responsibility for the things that are not in alignment with yourself. I know it’s hard to acknowledge that we’re like that, but one of the amazing things about being an actor, or even being a human being, is to really have empathy for ourselves. We need to have more compassion for ourselves and figure out how it will show up in the work. To me the work is always a reflection of the prism of life. Even though it’s hard, I try to keep coming back to how can I allow for more compassion for myself and the way I see other people. It’s the only way to get through or else we’ll constantly stay on the side of ‘this is right’ and ‘this is wrong.’
As we move forward in this new era, please be gentle with yourself and acknowledge in yourself these parts. It’s ok to have them, just try to monitor them. Instead of projecting them onto other people, how do you utilize them more profoundly in your own work to then really reveal to humanity what it means to be human.
