Thoreau and Emerson espoused an ideology, a response to loss, and victory against authoritarianism which led them to find resilience and meaning through a direct connection to the Divine, accessed in the beautiful woods of Concord. Through that personal connection they accessed in themselves a richness of ideas and culture. They found themselves through this connection, able to rely on themselves for inspiration and direction.
I feel something similar myself, both walking through those beautiful woods in Concord, and through painting. What I particularly value is the culture which has been gifted to me, particularly through my love of art, music, literature and philosophy. I am not an expert in any of these fields but what I do know sustains me with a sense of beauty and a connection with great thinkers who serve as mentors in good times and in bad.
It is something of this sort that I hope to offer through this new program, which I hope will allow others to access beauty and personal meaning through the arts. I hope to offer this experiencethrough painting and writing and hope to engage others who can offer similar experiences through these and other arts, such as music, perhaps also quilting, clothing making, the construction of other objects and the making of videos and podcasts.
I have become worried that we are surrounded now with a culture that is the antithesis of this, also born of loss and trauma but which is nihilistic and destructive to individual wellbeing-particularly for children and young adults, and also for our society.
I think young people are being inundated with a philosophy that everything is a construction-gender, societal roles, government, culture, even science which it is said is the product of societies that are evil and predatory such as Europe, the United States, Israel, the UK because they are colonizers or supremacists or white men or cisgender and should be ignored or destroyed.
As a result young people are being left confused and very angry. We have a politics based upon rage and self righteousness. There is no room for dialogue, thinking together, only rage and what poses as moral certainty. If we are to rebuild as a people I think we all need a way to reconnect with ideas that we love and find a way to talk through differences with compassion and patience.