Is Art an Entertainment or a Vital Neccesity?

 

I've been thinking a lot about art these last couple of weeks, more specifically on what is art and why art is important.

 
Is Art simply a form of entertainment? A luxury that people waste time on?
Does Art have a purpose towards humanity and everyday needs? Is it vital to our survival?

At first I considered, in war, how Art is the first to go.

In society, art is seen as a recreational part of our time, so in war, there is no time for personal idle time. And in that same theme, in war, we also see how business also suffers.
In a similar sense, much of business can be seen as an idle recreational field
if it's not important in a war effort. Like Art, the idle time at work, promoting goods and
making a socially respectable living in insurance and business contracting
is likewise slimmed into the essentials, what is needed in order to get by.

In war, companies that don't support the effort, creating things such as generators, batteries,
oil, metal, fabric, eventually turn into essential productions such as an automobile factory
turning into an ATV combat vehicle production line; and an electronics factory becoming
an electronic plant for combat components.

And in the grand scheme of this war theme, when you narrow down humanity to the naturalism state, there is ONLY effort for war, cultivation, medicine and science engineering.
So in an ideal, non Artistic world, the triumphs of human's perceptions of what IS important,
narrows down to natural survival, in work and contribution, family and reproduction--and lastly
innovations towards more progress in survivability.

These are what would be the ideals of what IS valuable in life. And still, many have already
questioned if this focus is all there is in life. 

--

In science fiction tropes, we often see these same types of utopias appear with a glaring problem.
In almost every situation, where the ideal survival focus is at play, people often realize
the flaws of living in survival vs living to be free.

That's the crucial part about human will and freedom, that everyone only has a limited amount of
time to live, and what matters is how people make use of being alive.

If our human purpose was only fixated on the crude aspects of survival,
our personal time engaged into our freedom is lessened.

I would argue, that more than just the vital areas in life, that a person's time is more important.
And if a person's time on earth has more value, than simply fixating on an ideal schedule and life,
then it's the things we do in life that carry more importance than the everyday things we do to survive.

I believe that's why Art is not an entertainment or luxury or a privilege,
art is an invaluable part of our human worth, that a simple 2 hour movie
is more life experience than an 8 hour workday because work is important in
human survival, but a simple movie is vital to a human's time. It's just something simple we don't really consider because we do not measure our life normally by the 24 hour value, but as our potential human lifespan. So while it's funny to measure a movie vs a real work day, it would be true if that day was the last in your life. That 2 hour movie is where you would want to experience. This is because Art is a flavor of joy in our existence. And how much is that joy worth?
 

In truth, society may view art as simple entertainment, but in actuality
art is created in many forms ranging from physical sports, music, videogames, writing, dance, theater, to more complex exercises such as the difference between performance and practice and development.

Art can be as simple as seeing a slapstick performance, to being a masterpiece of literature and philosophy through writings that create new content and stories, arguments, and debates.
Art can be a simple drawing of a cartoon, to being a masterpiece of an animation.

That sort of enjoyment, which people engage in, can be anywhere from a slow witted piece,
to an engaging lifestyle in painting, writing poetry, expressing yourself in the everyday living.

That everyday living, is what most consider the LEAST important part of society.

Often referred to as "personal time," or "hobbies," or "recreations," or "entertainments,"
these are all a way that society downplays the importance of human time
and the significance that art has in our lifestyles outside of work and war.

So, in case people want to downplay that Art is simply entertainment,  

I want to remind that history remembers our technological innovations, our scientists, our celebrities, our rulers, but people will also pass down our literature, our sheet music, our hymns, our proverbs, our plays, our melodies, our paintings, our dances because Art is never about being an entertainment piece, it's a vital necessity to our human lifestyle. 

So, are humans just work robots? Don't we all crave creativity? We do it so well that we hardly notice the Art around us. Not only is Art everywhere from our mindless entertainment to our cinematic classics, it's also in our business trades, our hospital designs, our work areas, even on sticky notes found in the most mechanical, gearhead office. 

Art is as natural as breathing air. Art is in our cars, our computers. Art might not be in the way we design medical containers, but its everywhere outside our jobs as a medical profession. Art might not be found in a decompressed room miles beneath the ocean, but to those divers, Art is what they would want to see if they were trapped underwater. 

In fact, I don't know many accounts of people who were trapped in a life and death scenario, that wanted to live so they can go to work at a factory, or an office, or a military base again. People often want to live to hear music, or express emotions, or feel the joy in sports and movement. 

 Art is in the very core reasons why we continue to live for.