When I decided I wanted to be an artist I was probably 14 years old. I thought long and hard about what I could do to achieve that dream and what made great art really great. I think the book Looking For Alaska by John Green played a part in my conclusion: to find the deepest meaning in any given circumstance is to be a truly successful artist. So from then on everything that I wrote was filled to the brim with whatever scraps of existential anguish I could conjure.
It was only recently that I conceded to myself that escapism is cool too. And within escapism truly meaningful ideas can often be found. They’re just not hard to look at or difficult to decipher. Looking For Alaska is still one of my absolute favorite books but so is Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. Both books are incredible creations by artists whom I deeply admire and both books required real passion and dedication to create. I have learned that there is nothing wrong with consuming art for the sake of consuming art without requiring it to transcend the raw emotion it induces.
When I think of escapism my mind immediately takes me to the song If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know) by The 1975 (I’d like to take this moment to clarify that this blog is not purely dedicated to The 1975). When they released it as a single I have to admit I was disappointed. I wondered why someone as deep a thinker as Matthew Healy would bother to create such a vapid tune with his band. It offered no poetic intrigue, none of their iconic postmodern jabs. It was not my style.
Later, I watched a Track By Track interview by Radio X in which Matty said something that has stuck with me since. I can’t find the video now but his commentary on the track boils down to this: If You’re Too Shy exists because its escapism provides a contrast to the more worldly and “meaningful” songs on Notes On A Conditional Form. The escapism of the song is exactly why it is valued.
And what could possibly be wrong with a song that makes you smile or makes you want to dance? Emotional reaction is emotional reaction. It doesn’t have to be a certain kind of emotion to be successful. If a piece of art stirs any emotion in you at all it is doing its job. What more could you ask?
While my newfound appreciation for escapist art is real and important my love of deep art remains and it prevails. Looking For Alaska will remain in my heart always, while Six of Crows is already fading from that special place. But I’m going to take this lesson with me as I continue to create and try to remember not to filter out ideas that are “not meaningful enough”. Because what really is meaning and who decided it had to be complicated or negative? There are no rules here.
Intermediately Versed 