How Art Imitates Life

t is said that art imitates life, and it sure must be so, because in the last one hundred years, the world has gone from looking like a Norman Rockwell painting to a Picasso abstract interpretation. Cherry cheeked children that once inspired peach crate labels, wear more make-up than drag queens today as they compete in beauty pageants. The "Yes Sir's" and "Yes Ma'am's" of yesteryear, have been replaced with two words that begin with an f, and end with a u. Institutions that once honoured the valor of our veterans are closing forever, our elders are being neglected and abused, and people are so focused on equality, that it's now perfectly acceptable to be sexist in order to promote anti-sexism. They say that the middle east is the cradle of civilization, but I say if that was true, civilization would have to be horribly developmentally disabled. Heck, after several thousand years, most civilizations in the middle east are still behaving like fanatical warring, moronic, murderous idiots.

All the careful brush strokes that compose classical art masterpieces are now replaced with industrial lines, comedic caricatures and surrealistic slashes. In life, that translates to politeness now being seen as weakness, relationships that are made and broken using thumbs, and people in pajamas working sixty hours a week without ever leaving their home. Privacy is now just a museum exhibit, and Personal Rights is expected to join it soon. Our peace and quiet has been replaced with constant chaos, farming tracts have become tract housing, and mobile homes have today truly become mobile. Religiously, we have evolved from worshipping gods, to turning them into reality shows, and from caring and sharing, to hateful glaring. In our rush for a better life, we sacrifice its quality, caught up in our overwhelming obsession to acquire massive amounts of information and possessions that we will never use.

The things that our parents once dreamed of are now our expectations, and what would have absolutely awed our grandparents, now bores our children. We seek healthy lifestyles at fast food franchises, and responsibly recycle our cans, bottles and paper by driving to recycling depots in pollution puking vehicles. We make our paper from trees, when better paper can be made cheaper by using plants. We send police in to arrest the people trying to save the world, and find those who abuse power and position not guilty. Instead of dealing with the causes of crime, we build even more jails, and, instead of labelling liquids known to cause murder and madness as poison, we designer bottle and sell them. It is perfectly legal to purchase cigarettes, known to cause cancer, yet it's illegal to buy the marijuana used to treat it.

Yep, I reckon that art does imitate life, because in less than one hundred years our lives have gone from the detailed beauty of the old masters, to the sloppy splotches and slashes of those deemed 'futuristic'. We've gone from helping each other to build barns, to helping each other drop bombs, and from planting the ground, to burying it in concrete. I for one, hope new masters come forth soon, and paint us all a better tomorrow.

Will is a Canadian writer with a great sense of humor, cutting wit and a 'tell it like it is' attitude. Will writes about all kinds of things, but his favorite subject to write about is the love of his life, Crazy Lady. Told with a folksie flair, Will's Thoughts cover a wide variety of subjects, each told in a way that only Will can tell it, and will entertain you for hours.