Art and the Snapshot

What is the meaning of a piece of art? This is an often asked question when someone stares at some abstract painting that other people have come to say in a great masterpiece. Why is it great? What does it mean? All art takes time, resources and skill to create. The very fact that a piece of art exists, must prove that it had meaning to someone, even if that someone is only the artist. Most people should know something about this since we all have created such pieces of art ourselves.
People snap photos of those that they care for and the places that are important to them without asking what does the photo mean? What is the meaning of an image of your child sitting in a high chair or a family dog sunning itself in the doorway? These are expressions of art made at the touch of a button by almost every American. These images of artistic expression are chances for each of us to express to others what we hold in our hearts. Moments reflected on 4x6 glossy paper become a road map to the events of our lives. What do these pictures mean? To the picture taker they are frozen examples of what is precious and important.
Years ago I worked as a photo processor at a drug store. I would view a hundred rolls of film in a typical day without it being busy. The day after Christmas was always one of the busiest and dullest days to make prints from negatives. Each frame looked the same as all those that came before it. A person sits in a cozy living room with an overly enthusiastic smile on their face, for some object recently rescued from its wrapping paper. If I made a mistake and a print needed to be remade it became a trial to discern one smiling face from another. Viewing thousands of images in this way left each picture meaningless to me, but that is not to say that these pictures had no meaning.
How often have we looked at another persons photo album while they gushed and fussed over the story behind each photo? This picture was taken then and that’s a photo of so and so. Meanwhile, we politely smile and fight the glaze that is building over our eyes. Most snap shots convey meaning only to the person that opened the shutter of the camera. I can look through my numerous photo albums and relive my life, full of thoughts of nostalgia and importance. I also pull my pictures out if I want to stop a party cold in its tracks. Snapshots are the art of the common man. The only difference between those personal visions of Christmas we take every year and the paintings that hang in the grand galleries and museums of the world is the size and scope of the audience. However, even these great masterworks are never universal in their conveyance of meaning. All forms of art no matter how brilliant can only speak to some of the people some of the time. This is due to the complex variation we find in the human condition.
So the next time you find yourself baffled by some great painting or poet, think of your favorite Christmas snap shot or the picture you keep of your dog sunning itself in the doorway. Then, at the very least, you share in the experience of meaning and value in life with the artist even if you can’t share understanding or interest. This point of view works great when touring a museum. It also works wonders when looking at someone else's picture albums.

Winter and Warming

This year’s warm winter has very little to do with the phenomenon of global warming. There is a feeling amongst many that as long as there is snow on the ground then the warming global temperature is not our problem. Colorado is up to its eyeballs with snow after all; it’s hard to tell from there that we have a crisis on our hands. It is important to note however, that the average temperature in Colorado was almost 2 degrees higher than their average for December. The seasons will continue to play themselves out year by year no matter how much carbon dioxide we fill the atmosphere with. Thanks to the tilt of the earth it will always be colder in January than it had been during July. To what extreme and at what level of consistency is the question we are facing with the issue of global warming.
One warm winter does not global warming make. It is the average global trend of temperature change that we need to be worried about. It is cold in Colorado this year, that is certainly true, but the storms they have endured have been unusual to say the least. They are unusual in the same way that Hurricane Katrina was a storm that was damaging and dangerous in a way that we had never seen in this country. It is this factor, weather of the extreme and the unusual, that we must look at as a warning of instability to come. When told that global warming might make average temperatures a few degrees higher most of us shrug with indifference. Golfing and gardening a few weeks further in to the year doesn’t sound like such a bad thing. When feeling the fresh air and warm sun on my face while walking a nature trail in December the first thought is not of peril. Not being able to anticipate what the weather will bring from one year to the next is far more troubling.
Should the Denver municipality allocate more money for snow removal next year or were these series of storms just a fluke? Just how tall should the new levies of New Orleans really need to be? Should farmers stop trying to grow oranges in California? How we respond to the unpredictable weather effects us in a number of ways in our daily life beyond our choice of tee shirt verses sweater. Global patterns of weather are getting harder to predict and far more dangerous when we get it wrong. Each year it has become more difficult for meteorologists to predict weather events. Last years hurricane season was predicted to be one of the worst and instead turned into one of the quietest. This fact does not set me at ease. On the contrary, this uncertainty is the loudest alarm that there is a serious problem facing us on this world of ours.
The problem with global warming is the scope of the issue and our inability to get a proper perspective that encompasses the entire planet. The weather map does not stop at the boarders of the United States. The start of this problem and its solution go beyond the scope of our lives. It is hard for people to quit smoking with only their future health in mind. It’s hard to change our spending habits to prepare for our retirement. How much more difficult it must be to imagine that our choices today could effect the clouds in the sky tomorrow. Most of us think in terms of what is right in front of us. This year’s warm weather has not been much of a problem or burden for us. Unless you’re a ski resort owner or farmer you may have found this extended autumn to be a blessing. What will the weather be next year or next month? It is becoming increasingly harder to say. There is an old saying: “Everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it.” It is time to start trying to do something about the weather or risk loosing our continued prosperity.

Consequences of Failure

The consequences of failure in Iraq will be dire. This is the mantra of those supporting the newest plan to surge American troops into Baghdad. This oft repeated phrase in design to convey the idea that those opposing the new push have nothing to offer except white towels to be thrown, signaling complete defeat. Failure, according to the President, is not an option. This only means that if these newest tactics fall short of the goals they have set, then the outcome will have to be redefined as something else entirely. The plan to surge troops is a, “new way forward,” not an acknowledgment of the failure of the previous policy.
When is the last time our government admitted to failing at anything? After we spent thousands of lives and millions of dollars trying to secure the nation on Vietnam only to withdraw our forces without any of the basic goals met, President Nixon described the failure as, “Peace with honor.” No matter what the future holds for Iraq, regardless of how terrible the situation becomes no President, Bush or his replacement, will label the final outcome with the adjective, “failure.” Like all politicians that have come before, they will use spun language to describe reality in terms of our own victory, even if that victory is pyrrhic and more costly than it‘s worth.
Plans for a way forward in Iraq, rejected by the President, have been criticized for not being detailed and precise enough to be practical. Most of these plans require talking and negotiating with our enemies. Discussing the future of the region with the leaders on those countries in not failure. Diplomacy and compromise is what has made this country a symbol of liberty and fairness throughout the world. Giving Iran more diplomatic power than it deserves is not a perfect solution, but we are long past hoping for perfect solutions to a problem we created. Asking the president of Iran to help bring security to the region may pain the pride, but better a sacrifice of pride than a sacrifice of our soldiers.
Why then would the administration use the word “failure” so prominently to describe a possible outcome in Iraq? Could it be because, despite the show of getting outside options and councel, the President believes that only his chosen path is capable of bringing us through this crisis? The term “failure” is being used to manipulate the population into fearing alternative points of view. If the President intended to use “failure” honestly he would have described the outcome of his own previous choices with the word. In the recent address to the nation he acknowledged and took responsibility for mistakes, but for his failures he remained silent.
With hope, the President’s newest strategy will work. I want the goals set forth by his plan makers to succeed with speed and clarity. The consequences of success using the current strategy far outweigh the frustration that might come from a smug and grinning George W. Bush addressing the nation with “I told you so.” However, the inability to see failure as an option blinds them to creation of contingency plans. Worst than an inability of this surge to secure the population of Iraq may be the continued lack of preparation for life never going as planned. Failure to plan for negative outcomes, to actions taken, is always more detrimental than the setback itself. The Bush administration never anticipated not finding WMD’s in Iraq, not being greeted as liberators, or the influence and involvement of Iran and Syria. It was this lack of preparation for the unforeseen that has brought us to the point we are today. As long as the President is prepared for his own success and no other contingency, the rest of the world will be insecure and fearful of the word, failure.

Fault and Responsibility

All the mistakes I have made in my life have not been my fault. Conspiracies of events that I had no control over lead me to each misstep. Only had I been born in a different time, in a different place, to different parents might I have avoided the things I have done that I am not proud of. However, I was born when I was to the parents that I love and therefore I must take responsibility for the mistakes that I have made as well as everything that happens in my life. If I was struck by a drunk driver tomorrow it would not be my fault, but recovering from my injuries would be my responsibility. The drunk driver, much as he would be to blame could and would never take my place in fixing what he has broken. If I knew every element of the drivers story from the time he was born to the moment he struck me I would see that the cascade of events were all but unavoidable. This worldview frees me from the task of assigning blame to the world and lets me focus on taking responsibility for my own direction.
The world we were all born into is a complex and constantly moving place. We are thrown into that mix without so much as a question to whether we are ready for the life we are given. The time, place and parents we find when we arrive have all been determined far in advance of our arrival. How we are received and what lessons we are given vary widely from one person to the next. Is it the fault of Paris Hilton that she is a spoiled and snarky rich kid with no sense of her own potential? Can we fault the racist with the dead-end job for blaming his misery on people he has never met? Neither of these people chose the position they were born to, nor did they choose the teachers that would model for them how life is supposed to be addressed.
This show we call life has been going on long before we arrived and will continue long after we have departed. Human history may seem distant to us in our day to day living but the narrative of the past still color our every thought and idea. Jesus was born 20 centuries ago and there is not a single person alive today that is not influenced by that birth. The same can be said about Muhammad born 6 centuries later or Elvis Presley born 72 years ago. We would all be a different person if any of these figures did not exist. Our choices would have been as different as the world we would have encountered. How can we blame anyone for their conduct of their lives when our personal conduct is so influenced and guided by these characters of history? We can however, still hold faultless people to the consequence of their actions. The drunk driver might not be at fault for the conduct he chooses, but he is still responsible to pay the price for the misdeed.
The reasons we chose one direction in life over another does not absolve the fact that we do make choices and those choices have consequences. The consequences of my actions are my responsibility. Those actions also affect the lives of everyone I have contact with and beyond. My friends and family all live variations of the world they live based on my influence and participation in their lives. This essay is an extension of that influence. If you happen to read it, your life will have been changed, if only in a very small way. Should the next thing you do be to jump off a bridge, you could say it was the fault of this essay. Perhaps some line of text triggered a bridge jumping yearning in you that could not be overcome. Are your actions my fault? Perhaps, along with some sort of psychological disorder, but your wet clothes and precarious position in the water is now your responsibility.
The truth is, the idea that everything we are and choose to be is somehow something else's fault, is a lie. So is the idea that we are solely responsible for the people we have come to be and the lives we have come to live. That being the case, doesn’t it make more sense to embrace everything in our lives as part of our own burden to bear? When the car breaks down or sickness comes we can claim them quickly as part of the life we are responsible for. The world in which we live is too complex to point our fingers accurately at others and the time we have to spend is too short to waste time trying.