About Art

Shang Liang
Aug 9, 2017 · 3 min read

For very long time, I didn’t understand what art is for. I considered it an outlet for people to explore their creativity. It is fun to make.

For very long time, I didn’t understand why I have “strange feelings” when I look at an artwork. I later developed a theory that good art are those which make you feel confused.

Recently my wife executed her “komono”, a process of tidying up (mainly throwing away) your clutters. There is a very important step: hold an item and feel it, if it sparks joy {keep it} else {thank it & throw it away}.

Most people claims komono has changed their lives. I’m not sure how much my wife’s life had changed but she did discover some emotions she didn’t realise before this.

This gives me a new insight. The ability of knowing your feelings can be trained by practicing.

Scientifically speaking, our feelings come from the brain. Our neurones respond to hormones, triggering neural pathways thus forming emotions or thoughts. When these pathways get triggered more often, the brain optimises the pathways and tweaks the oxygen and energy distributions to the neural cells which make them fire easier, faster and stronger. So, by having feelings more often, we can have feelings easier and stronger, which is the same as speaking a language or practicing drawings.

The primary purpose of art is to express the artists’ feelings. So, creating and appreciating art is the best medium to train our feelings. Not everyone can paint but most of us (except for those who are unfortunately blind) can stare at paintings. We do not need to know how to criticise. All we need to do is to ask ourselves what we feel when we look at them. It does not matter what we feel or whether we can articulate our feelings. As long as we feel something, we are practicing and we will get better.

So, is knowing our feelings important?

Very often I can’t answer the question of “what do you want”. I can’t answer big questions like what I want for my life neither can I answer small questions like what I want to eat. “Anything” is the most convenient answer.

Why I can’t answer? I am not sure how I feel. If you force me to think, I will give you a logical answer, which is thinking not feelings.

A more fundamental question is “are you happy?”. If the answer is yes, there is nothing much to worry about. But if the answer is no, no matter how logical, scientific or meritocratic a person is, he or she would agree that being unhappy is not a good thing. So why are you unhappy? What makes you unhappy? If all these difficult questions get answered, we have a starting point to work on.

We can’t answer these questions without checking how you feel. So knowing our feelings is the basis of making sure we are happy so we don’t become depressed, turn to drugs and kill ourselves eventually.

However, we are very out of touch with our feelings because we are busy with external stimulus. We are reacting, not feeling. We are socially engineered to do what we are “supposed” to do: learn new things, make our lives better, make others lives better and save the environment etc. All these positive thoughts are good. However, are these what we truly feel like doing? Did we arrive at these visions and hopes by ourselves or is it an illusion of what we think we believe or feel?

We always read inspiring stories about someone went through some trauma and become enlightened. Maybe we can achieve the same result through art and avoid the trauma part.

I used to consider art is a luxury and useless item. But now I have changed my opinion. Art is for training our brain to be closer to our heart, our feelings so we can find our happiness.

NB: Just my guess no scientific backing up

Shang Liang

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