How do you see the world?

The Flight of The Condor: The Sunday strips, week 75

Hey,

What is it to make art?

Is it to describe the world?

Well, if it is, it’s surely not to describe it objectively.

Perhaps art is about describing the world through the eyes of the artist. Who was that famous physicist who said that every observation of nature is actually an observation of ourselves?

It’s not that I won’t google it because I’m lazy (which, of course, I am), but because I’d have to stop typing for a minute, and I don’t want to interrupt myself.

The thing is, every painting, every song, every comic book is a view of the world according to a specific person.

Let’s say a writer looks at his hometown. Nothing special. A Sunday evening: traffic lights, clouds, old houses, a dog walking along the sidewalk. You know what I mean. If the resulting story is boring and dull, does it mean that the hometown is boring and dull? Or is it someone else who’s boring and dull?

And on the contrary, have you read Alan Moore’s Voice of the Fire, or Jerusalem?

The other day I said hell is a mirror. Maybe I was wrong after all. Maybe, if you dedicate your life to art, the whole world becomes a mirror, and the right thing to do is walk through it.

But then, if every observation of the world is an observation of oneself, what makes the world interesting is not the world itself, but the artist.

So read more. Study more. Practice more. Have more friends.

Be more interesting.

Be funnier, or wiser, or stronger. And watch the world take your shape.

PS: This is how I see the world, if you’re curious.