ARTISTIC PERSPECTIVE [draft 2]

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE?
..Artistic Perspective..

Art surrounds each and every one of us everyday whether we realize it or not and many are very oblivious to the fact that we are all affected by it one way or another. Going by my personal definition of art, I consider it to be any type or form of expressing something. I think of it to bring forth a certain emotion or thought in the viewer’s head. Art is a skill or display of meaning and/or interpretation. It includes ones opinion and inner voice, without necessarily outright saying it, and makes one think broader and forces one to be opened up to new and expanded possibilities.
Following such a definition, I’ve come to the conclusion that this class is a form of art. “What is the meaning of life” course is one that I see is a technique to broaden my views and causes me to see things in a different spectrum, just like any other piece of art would. Whether it be the typical piece of are such as a painting, or a book, movie, dance, song, poem, architecture and so on, if whatever it is has a certain impact over you in a certain aberrant approach, I would consider it art. As far as this course goes, I am able to walk into this class almost everyday and I am able to see from a different outlook from each and every visit. My views are expanded to all these varied thoughts and possibilities much like it would if I were listening to some distinctive piece of poetry.
Aside from this class as a piece of art, we have looked at a wide assortment of the diverse viewpoints towards the meaning of life. Being that we have come to the conclusion that art has its way of expressing meaning without technically defining it, we came to understand that art may be a very useful way of helping us come closer to our awareness of the key to life. Much like how it seems that words cannot thoroughly define our purpose of living, we have already established that art does not take any actual words to delimit a message, so why wouldn’t art be able to give us a deeper meaning of life without the use of a typical description. It might be the exact and possibly only way to identify our significance to life.
While reviewing the many possibilities of an artistic piece to focus on, I’ve decided to compare how a story written by Stephen King (also made into a film), named “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”, a short story named, “Jump Shots” written by Robert James Waller, as well as a concise movie piece called “Ready”. Each of those examples portrays a different yet relatable way to live and look at life. All pieces gives the viewer/reader diverse way to view life and how to deal with it in a perhaps out of the ordinary, remarkable way. In the first artistic model, “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”, Stephen King introduces the reader to the idea that life is about not letting life define you. King makes it clear that life is what you make it, although we don’t have complete control and choice over all oncoming circumstances, and its about making the best out of what is put in front of you. Stephen King uses a number of different techniques to emphasize such meanings, and brings about alternative questions of the meanings of life. The questions, “Is there a larger significance (to life)?”, and “How should we live” are recognized and the answers are obscurely rejoined. The main character, Andy Defresne, has experienced an overload of struggle and just pain and suffering all physically, mentally, and emotionally, and those are things he had no choice in. The fact that he’d been sentenced to life in prison over a crime that was not entirely proven to be under his hands, and getting beat and raped in jail etc. were all “natural” struggles and problems that were obviously not selective and he could not help but to deal with it in whichever way he could. Yet what I personally got out of this story, is that one cannot allow life’s uncontrollable occurrences define and characterize them as a person. One cannot have power over what life has been given to them, and can’t even completely control what happens with it, yet throughout this piece, it was quite evident that we has humans must come to an understanding of that and must make the best out of what we comes our way no matter what. It is our job to survive through any situation, learn and grow from it even if its difficult. Defresne experienced a lot of hard times and tons of torment and misery, yet he still managed to come out and fight his way through it, making sure that he defines himself and not the situation.
Such a novel/movie, similar to the short story we read in class, “Jump Shot”. With a completely different plot, and not nearly as gloomy, the message it conveyed was just as up to par. It is the story of a boy’s desire to play basketball and how it transformed his life. This story shows the process in which life experiences get on the verge to take over a person. With the author explaining his life as this small, frail, want-to-be basketball star with dreams larger than his body, as a youngster, he goes on to his mid life and how his almost fairytale dreams are actually making his reality. Waller spends his life striving to complete his one main goal, that made him happy, until he suddenly doesn’t find the same joy out of his objective as he used to. All the way up to taking his basketball career in college, piece by piece, he slowly got worn out of his desire for his love of basketball. Basketball had shaped his live and was beginning to generate what was to come for him, rather than himself deciding that. However, does that mean that live is also about the strive to find what makes one happy?
In the peculiar short film called “Ready”, this significant movie is focused around the natural, uncontrollable idea of death. Death is the one thing that no one can in anyway control and can always bank on happened. Dying is something no one can in any way work around and in this film a woman believes that she is aware of the day she will die. She spent the last times of her life with a plan, and she lived each day trying to control what would happen with each hour until her time was up. She had a timer on her life, and she figured instead of aiming to live life to its absolute fullest (whatever that may be), she decided to live as if there was nothing she could do other than following the routine of her life.
All three of those artistic pieces demonstrated the same message, yet in very uncommon ways. The fact that one must make the best out of each situation they are given, without having a choice over what exactly they are handed. The way each manages the unmanageable circumstances is how we should live our lives according to these pieces of art.