“What’s the point?” is how I was feeling this morning, still shell-shocked from news of two mass shootings this week. What’s the point of any of it? It seems a natural response to become quiet and still. Then, to want to retreat from a world that feels scary and chaotic. To just wait it out. Then I thought: We’re the lucky ones. Not only because we lived, but because we are the artists. We have our paint, our words, our lyrics, our leaps, our scripts, our instruments, our voices. And they are not petty things.
Nothing stopped us from making art. Not back then and not now. We had the spark and because of our birth or despite it or by chance or struggle we were lucky enough to make art and keep making it. In some cases, it saved some lives, including our own.
So, what do we do on the dawning of this next day? We may need to be quiet and still. But when that time comes to an end, may we pick up those brushes, that pen, open the laptop, turn the lights on in the rehearsal space, take that step. Because we are the lucky ones. We need to make art and the world needs to be saved by it.