Making and understanding art can teach many things, about how things really work, and about how to really live your life. A state of mind of which Art feels it is getting more scarce in this world.
Art is a symbol of freedom to follow your own pattern and pace; and for kids this is good to know in many situations:
- it is not terrible if you can not follow the pace at school, it doesn't make you less of a person. And actually Art feels that people in reality only use 10% of what they have learnt in school. And most people are mainly limited by their skills to communicate, not by their amount of factual knowledge.
- it is not a drama when you can not deal with computers or when you are not able to participate in the hundreds of social media forums...Art Burshy lived all his life without it and somehow manages to be happy, without being 'like'-d too much.
- you should not be afraid to let go of things when you struggle to keep up. Too many people for example stay in their jobs while it gets tougher and tougher, working harder and harder. But why?
Probably it is like the famous scientific test with frogs in water...when you put the frog directly in a tub of boiling hot water, he directly jumps out. But when you slowly increase the temperature, the frog stays in and will be boiled to death.
Basically people are not more intelligent than frogs, because when it comes to many things that ruin their lives, they just stay there as the disaster gets fed to them in small portions.
This also touches a popular pet peeve of Art Burshy (one of many, although he might not admit that himself).
His view about working hard and efficiency?
Well, say company A is not happy with how much money they make.
They hire consultants telling them about the latest trends, and show them how to cut cost, improve efficiency and have less people do more through automation...this to offer services cheaper than competition and make a bigger margin...
and what happens when they succeed...?
Well then competitors hire the same consultants, and end up copying the 'successful' approach...cutting more cost and working even harder...
Result of all this?
We all end up running harder, in the end for the same amount of money, or even lesssss...
Well, that was a short side track, but just an example why understanding art is important for children, to create an independent mind and the courage to challenge ones own convictions and habits.
And actually, Art feels you do not need to teach children a lot; basically they actually have all required implicit knowledge when being born.
They just tend to push it away because of all the bloody bullshit they get demonstrated and taught by grown-ups.
Then, this afternoon, after a session with his youngest child when showing him some art works, feeding him some art ideas....
this time his baby son took it a bit to literal...he actually started eating the art work...
And although Art Burshy has an open artistic mind...
this pushes it just a bit too far...
and for a moment it looks like it will almost make him angry...
but in he ends up with a smile on his face...
it was only his son getting carried away with one of his art works, that's not such a big deal.
