Desublimation

I got teary on the 5th floor of the MoMA in New York City. I felt like I was learning how to see again and that child-like feeling made me misty. I had my headphones in, my music going, and I wandered from Impressionist painting to Impressionist painting, many of which I remembered studying in my basement Art History class at Seattle U in the winter quarter of freshmen year when I was all engagement and curiosity and energy, a human glow incubating my sublime soul, when words like juxtaposition and chiaroscuro gave me a mental and emotional boner. Here in the museum, I examined Van Gogh's hayfields, Derain's docks, Monet's pond: each one wasn't just beautiful, but the swaths of colors, the wind-like motion of the strokes, the elevated paint like the mountain ridges of a topographical globe were resonant. To stand close to the painting and see no possibility of this splotch turning into anything but then slowly backing away and seeing that splotch bleed into its surroundings like water into a napkin, it reminded me of how buildings, the body, memory, ideas are not connected by fact, but perception, reminded me how as a I grew up, I linked the objects and ideas around me in my own way to create my own understanding which in turn in created my own identity.

Reality is a personal amalgam.

I recently came across the word desublimation, a horribly horribly philosophical jargony term, but the word nonetheless resonates with me just as the Impressionists do. The word has 2 meanings: 1) to divert the energy (a sexual or other biological impulse) from its immediate goal to a more social, moral, or aesthetic nature or use; 2) to take away the grandeur or veneration of a person, place, or thing. As I walked through the 5th floor of MoMA, the art felt sublime, a reminder of how creative and powerful man can be. This art came not from man, but from gods.

Yet my contemporary perceptions, culture and country, are desublimated. In the 21st century, it seems nothing is all that special, nothing demands veneration, nothing possesses grandeur. There are no heroes or ideals. To venerate or idolize is a pastime, anachronistic in today's reality. There is no expectation that we use our base human instincts (sex, violence, conflict) for anything but sex, violence, conflict.

Look, some may counter, we're being pragmatic, strategic, so we can get the most out of life. This is how the world works. I want the best job so I can get the best TV and and computer and car and internet so I can surround my existence with goods that give me pleasure.

We don't talk about love now, we talk about banging and tolerability. We don't talk about athleticism, we talk about salary. We don't talk about sympathy and forgiveness, we talk about those bitchy Kardashians. We don't talk about joy, we talk about purchases we've made. Somethings we just don't talk about at all, even in code: poverty, inequality, -isms, violence, our own choices that negatively impact our fellow man. (http://www.mtv.com/videos/misc/127351/wonder-showzen-burn-wall-street-burn.jhtml#id=1539536) But in all that we talk about or don't talk about, we become ourselves. In the words of Muhammed Ali, you are what you're thinking, and what is to become of us if all we think about is base desires and things?

That said, I am not a cynic. I am trying to fall in love again with everything. I want to see the world everyday like the Impressionists did in their paintings. I want to see colors and patterns and existential joy. I will not concede that my point is childish and we are adults, so... No, it is the adult who must have ideals, who must venerate, who must mentally prevent humans from being solely a means in his pursuit of happiness. It should be adults who awe at 150 million year old dinosaur bones, who dream of the light caress of a hand, who derive joy from pressing the accelerator, who look at art and can feel lifted still, who can understand each well-crafted thing or experience (furniture, film, love) is a message:. Don't permit your world to be taken off its pedestal, don't accept your reality to be unworthed. We are grand. We are human.