The language of gods
I grew up not being particularly interested in the arts. Museums bored me, and I don’t remember being especially moved by any art pieces. I can’t imagine that most kids were all that different. From an early age we are taught art in our schools, day care, etc. Our mindset however is more focused on technical skill than it is the idea that our artistic expression can communicate things that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to. We see art as color theories and assignments more so than we do as an extension of language. Skills take time to learn and when we don’t continue developing our skills to the point of relative mastery, we give up. From then on we form a world view that consists of artists and non-artists. I believe, however, that the very act of being alive is a form of artistic expression and that everything we do says something about us. Art is not a finite set of things that we put on a canvas; it is the way that we choose to spend our time and communicate to the people around us. Some actions convey more than others - a painting can capture things that words cannot, music can capture what a sculpture cannot, and so on. Art is simply an alternate mode of expression — an extension of language. The more modes of expression each of us have at our disposal, the more able we are to express what lies within. The more we express ourselves to those around us, the deeper our sense of mutual understanding and empathy there will be.
If we think of ‘art’ as an alternate language, we can presume that learning how to express/create new things allows our minds to reach beyond the constraints imposed on us by our language. When we experience thoughts, they frequently come to us in words. I believe that we do this, not because words are the most effective way to capture ideas within our minds, but because words are the medium that society has trained us to express ourselves through. Our educational institutions rely almost entirely on words to convey information and test proficiency. These words inherit the structures of our language and limit us to the range of possible metaphors contained within them. One example of this that always stood out to me was how the Dutch language doesn’t have a phrase for “I love you”. Instead, the Dutch use the phrase, “Ik hou von jou”, which translates to, “I hold onto you”. Every language holds within it its own set of metaphors and expressions that convey subtly different things. The more metaphors one can pull from when communicating, the more able they are to accurately convey their intended message. Studies have found that multilingual individuals tend to have better mental performance and memory than others1. Learning alternate artistic mediums like music, painting, etc, expands the mind and allows us to express metaphors that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to.
Practicing creativity helps us reflect, grow, and further self-actualize as people. Creating something, whether it is a painting, an invention, or a product, requires us to envision alternate possible versions of reality within our minds and work towards achieving them. When we do this, we assume the role of gods and reshape the world in our image. In the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, humanity had a single, unified language and was close to completing the construction of a tower that reached the heavens. God, intimidated by humanity's potential, divided us into many linguistic groups. This prevented us from easily understanding each other and rendered us unable to complete the tower. This story correlates humanity’s linguistic ability with its creative potential. The more unified and all encompassing our everyday language becomes, the closer we get to the language of gods. If we wish to linguistically evolve in this way, we must incorporate alternate means of expression into our everyday language and embrace intersectional modes of expression. Doing so will allow us to convey more of ourselves, foster deeper empathy between people, and will bring us closer to manifesting heaven on earth.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002209651200166X?via%3Dihub