Have you ever had the thought that the current thought you are having must be unique? Just to realize that it is either not unique or that you are forcing it to be. You want an idea to be unique.
We live in a world where non-consumption is a near, if not complete, impossibility. Obviously, there are ways to try and consume more “ethically” or “healthily.” Ethically, being in a market capitalist sense, and healthfully, being in a personal or mental health sense.
After my personal trials and tribulations with the usage of common-day media, it would be remiss to admonish myself for participating in the system of limited choice. Unless we wish to entirely close ourselves off to our fellow man and, as an artist, pursue the treacherous path of “art for art’s sake” (or, as Albert Camus puts it, “the entertainment of a solitary artist, which is indeed the artificial art of a fictitious and self-absorbed society”) we must participate.
Unless we wish to bring nothing of value to society, we must choose to participate.
For only in this choice of participation can we format something new. Meaning is a choice, decided by you and not for you.
Now, this is not to say that any form of chosen participation is good. In fact, I would say that much of today’s man chooses their participation poorly. Not poor in that it is “wrong” to the system, many people do bad things for (I won’t say good but rather) understandable or logical reasons.
The worker who can automate part of their menial and boring daily tasks through the use of AI does so at the perpetuation of a self-absorbing and regurgitating machine of cultural degradation and stagnation.
Does this make them a bad person? Certainly not. For a participant in the system of no choice, tries simply to make their life less painful. There are few things more painful than watching your life’s time be spent on something or given to someone who is unimportant to you.
Herein, however, lies the importance of that participatory choice. You are to choose what matters and what doesn’t. You are to choose where you will exist on the gradient of cultural creation and destruction. Would Rothko have used AI to write his theories of art’s purpose? Certainly not. Would he have used Pinterest to gather image references and Instagram DMs for philosophical discourse? Maybe.
I guess what I am trying to get across here is this: while the layman may (no, certainly) will be rewarded for the regurgitation of stolen ideas and will be praised for the elimination of struggle through optimization of the status quo, only through the struggle against degeneration can we, the artist, discover the new and the beautiful. The artist cannot be forced to participate. They must choose to do so. Only in this choice between what is important and what is not, between what’s acceptable and what’s not, only in this choice lies the value of the artist.
