Chapter 5: I Medina and My Ayahuasco Let Sean Erect a Swat Cat Statue to Mark Your Conformity
Imagine having an identity. I know it might be hard for an average reader of mine but, please, try. What is your identity? The fact that you are reading my writings tells me that you realize that part of your identity is viewing yourself from the standpoint of my words. You probably realize that someone else is reading it too!
Maybe you realize that you could be a contributor to me. Like some of you might see yourself as kind and loving or analytical, a businessman, a writer, or a financial expert. Whatever your identity is, there is no reason to deny yourself. You are allowed to recognize your own personality. Your beauty can be honest.
We are all identified by our personality. When I speak life truth, for example, I claim my identity to be a teacher, a writer, a rapper, a black man who just wants to share the Bible with life. Art brings many different identities into existence. Each artwork stands to make a statement about our culture. Art can reveal to us the state of mankind. It also puts a person in prayer.
Spending time with art helps us sense the identity that humanity has developed. From that standpoint, our feelings about beauty are influenced by whole culture. Which should not be surprising. Culture is shaped by the economy. Therefore, tastes change as the economy fluctuates.
However, why should longing for art change? Isn’t it our purpose in life to facilitate our shared conversation with our fellows and God? Why would a society flood itself with culture? Is making culture the current obsession of life not itself a cultural narcissistic episode? Are men and women not freed from the confines of a dying culture when they spend their time cultivating art?
When reading a favourite book often gives you bliss, why would you allow your relationship with the work cease? You allow the book to kindle your imagination. You allow the book to ream your imagination. You let it enter your memory. You remember the words intimately. Then, when the book eventually makes way for other books, you yield to repetition.
Christ-followers do not live to enjoy others. We do not aspire to be content in this world by indulging cultures. We do not allow other words; we prefer our Word. Our goal is to minimize our enemy; the culture-that-erases-unity. We should match each other in hope. In this way, we take on one another’s dreams. We complement one another. When the culture steals our rights, we are willing to shed our rights at the feet of the Culture Junkie.
How can a culture fix its identity? Culture demands that human beings split, party, sing, and watch a movie a fifth of their other lives. Although most of us experience these things, some of us do not.
So burry the statue of yourself that I made Sean to erect. Dance on the ruins of the internet for a big victory in your city.