Art is emotion, music is emotion that invites us to dwell in affective places within ourselves that are seldom visited. Artists have an essential role in the development of humanity. Musicians, filmmakers, architects, and scientists wield more influence in our lives than politicians and economists. However, paradoxically, society is organized around politics and economics instead of art. How did the art that moves us so deeply become mere entertainment? Why is it considered a secondary field of little significance?

Let's start at the beginning: What does art mean?

Art comes from the Latin word “ars“, which in the Indo-European language means to place, adjust, and arrange in a way that can be appreciated. In the Indo-European language, the word for crafting something or weaving is “tek“, which gave rise to words such as technique, technology, and text. Therefore, art means creating something, and technique is the way it is accomplished.

In ancient times, until the late Roman period, schools encompassed everything: art, science, engineering, and technique. All four were part of the same process to bring ideas into practice. Information was transmitted through philosophy (love for wisdom). The concept of art in that period was quite different from today. Any activity was considered art: a shoe made by the hands of a shoemaker, a sword crafted by a blacksmith, a dish prepared by a cook. A house is an art that combines mathematics and geometry. A song is born from rhythm and sound. Food is a result of chemistry and physics.

Why did art separate from science?

The Catholic Church began associating the world with hell and pleasure with things of the devil. Since art evokes emotions and, in the religious view, leads us to impure feelings, it drives us to sin. Therefore, only sacred arts were allowed, arts that worshiped God, unlike philosophy, which spread love for nature, arts, and bodily pleasures.

The European society of work emerged, replacing a society of emotions. It makes sense, doesn’t it? As we have all been subject to European culture due to colonization, this mentality spread worldwide, disregarding local history and cultures. In the 15th century, with the great navigations, what we now call globalization began.

During the Renaissance, when the arts started to reemerge, many artists, despite being the pioneers of science and pillars of development with their revolutionary ideas, such as Leonardo da Vinci, were not well received by science, which did not want to associate with aesthetic artists because emotions were counterproductive.

Descartes’ scientific method caused science to rely solely on objectivity, seeking to eliminate any subjectivity that could alter the result of an experiment. Artists and their creations were relegated to mere entertainment. Since then, we have been nothing more than emotional and eccentric bohemians who cannot contribute to the logic of the real world.

Despite all the judgment from formal society, the rule dictators, artists have been speaking of peace, humanity, equality, and love for centuries, and we all resonate with these ideas. However, politics and economics, despite contradicting these values, prevail because they are based on the logic that we cannot guarantee bread and security with songs.

Where did the idea that art cannot serve as an instrument to change the world come from? It originated from Judaic-Christian traditions that claim we must work to earn our daily bread, that we will not get anywhere by engaging in foolishness, that art is a waste of time. How many times have we heard statements like these…

Emotions

That is why we do not study art in school, only its metrics, its technique, and, at most, its history. This lack in our education does not equip us to deal with emotions. If someone laughs alone on the street, they are considered crazy; if they feel like crying, they are seen as fragile; if they feel anger, they are deemed unbalanced. There is no room for who we truly are.

In the past 300 years, science, engineering, and technique have propelled us to evolve more than in the last 150,000 years. However, the planet is in chaos. What happened? What did not evolve then? Our emotions! Art is the basic energy that connects us with the internal potential of the soul, the dream that inspires us to create and achieve. Separated from art, humanity has advanced greatly in technique but not in substance. We are witnessing the consequences of this absence in the world today.

Contemporary humans are repressed; they cannot communicate or express themselves because we have always heard phrases like “don’t cry, everything is fine,” “don’t be like that,” “don’t show yourself in public.” We do not function coherently. That is why we say what we do not feel, think what we do not say, and do not act on what we feel. We have lost the ability to love, to fully experience joy and sadness without judgment.

Such emotional, sexual, and energetic repression produces dissatisfied, introverted, and conflicted individuals. It breeds stupidity and impasses that turn into wars and destruction. There is no possibility of maturing or our species evolving and adapting to change without including art alongside science, engineering, and technique.

Artists

From the most expansive galaxy to the tiniest bacteria here on Earth, everything is created by the universe, from the simplest to the most complex organisms. Thus, we arrive at our bodies and their genius, the state of biological art. Therefore, we can say that we are universal art through the technique of biology.

"Art is the lie that enables us to see the truth." (Picasso)

How many times in life do we realize that what we imagined days, weeks, months, or years ago is the reality we are experiencing in the present? We think about pursuing this or that profession, living in this or that place, taking a certain trip, meeting someone specific, and one fine day, we see those projections become reality. The human culture of the last two millennia made us forget that this planet was designed to be a territory of experimentation where we can manifest our creations and enjoy being the artists of our own lives.

In our intimate moments, we love the arts, we are moved by music. It sets us free, invites us to dance, laugh, cry, and express anger in front of the mirror. We agree that art and artists are a way for us to change, to change the world, and yet it does not happen.

I am not saying that artists are special. Art is a heightened state of the soul that anyone can access if they can emancipate their truth. We can all become artists, but not only aesthetic artists. We can become artists of emotions, intellect, and logic, all together.

Each one of us can become an artist of our own life, take ownership of the verb that inspires and leads to action. We can act, change, realize projects, grow, expand, love. Bringing beauty to the world is the best way to order the chaos. We are art; we just need to recognize ourselves as artists. As artists of our own existence, we are also good appreciators of art. We need it to be present in our daily experiences. And Affectionate Marketing designs our everyday sound experience. It inhabits those simple moments of our day.

The more creative we are, the more capable we will be of receiving art through our senses. That art is found in the corners, in an elevator ride, in the music that plays in a store, in the pleasant touch of a cellphone. To bring about the revolution, we need to restore the place of art in the pores of society.

Exercise: How about inventing something new every day, playing with imagination and letting it create? It doesn’t have to be anything complicated. Small movements lead us to observe our micro-world, the one that runs on autopilot and steals many hours of our time.

Start by changing the order, the sequence of your actions when you wake up. Get out of bed, put on your slippers, drink water, and go to the bathroom in a different order. Perhaps go straight to the window to look at the day or simply reverse the usual order.
If you usually order food every day, do something different today. Look at what you have in the fridge and create a delicious meal.
If you only write on your phone, grab a pen and paper and write a story that you just remembered or something that caught your attention yesterday.
If you usually work with your phone nearby, leave it in the kitchen for a few hours and see what happens during the time you are apart from it.

Art: The Only Path to Transform the World!

Emotions

Artists

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