Art as religion

I often ponder on the deepest underlying roots connecting all religion and all spiritual explorations.  Put another way, I experiment with the concept of all religions containing one universal spark at their core that all apostles of every faith share on common.  To put words to this flickering flame is as hard as trying to catch it in your hand.  I see it as a THING.  It is something that is found on any number of journeys.  Once it is held, the holder feels connected to something greater than one's self.  Be it Islam or Wicca, be connecting to God in heaven or experiencing the greatest connection to the magic of the all mother, that moment of mixing the self with the almighty is somehow universal.  

While definitions may differ, I believe not in what I have described as a result of this search, but instead believe in what I have felt on this search.  This abundant feeling is sacred, but it is not a purely religious feeling.  I have felt this same way about certain movies, certain books, certain games even.  The experience lifts me up and connects me to something higher than myself.  Examples.  Cloud Atlas connected me to this endless journey across the ages as souls cross and recross the same problems again and again until they transcend them.  Prince of Persia connected me to a brave soul who conquers time itself to weave a narrative and growth arc that truly transcends time.  

Every story is a vessel that takes us to a different dimension.  It is the dimension where the collective imagination of all beings is given form.  By drinking of these stories and experiences, I become them; I live what they live and learn what they have learned.  I become more than myself and when I experience a story that connects me so complete to another and that feeling is identical to its sister flame that I find at the root of all religions I have studied.  

Dear reader, I would like to extrapolate this one step further.  Might I be so bold as to say that all art, all ACTION may lead us to this grand connecting force.  I do not mean to say that all of us are on this anti-entropic path, but I find most of humanity seeks this single feeling-- a flame that flickers through adversity and warms us to the truth that we are not alone.  

Diamonds in the Rough

Insanity leads to chaos,
Then to solitude...
The fruitless effort of adding
Meaning to what is meaningless

A lone, Crimson tear
Falls into the sea...
The echo of the remaining star
Cries out in the infinite vacuum

The least I can do
Is send my distant prayers
Over the winds of time,
Setting sail on dreams...

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I didn't write that.  I found it in a video game.  It was just an everyday RPG for the PS1 where you play as the protagonist and traverse this world AND a world where you died as a child.  Some RANDOM npc from his hometown was like, "hey, friend, I want to be a poet but I'm kinda stuck here in this little restaurant, would you listen to my poem?"  I was like, lol sure! ... And then I was like, ... oh.

My point with this post is two fold.

One, you can never know what you will find where you go.  Don't judge a book by its cover basically.  Just because it's a character in a video game doesn't mean it won't have something crazy to share.  Just because it is a waiter at a run down cafe doesn't mean it isn't a worthwhile person.  This npc was a diamond in the rough.  Frankly, that whole game is, but her even more so.  Don't let anyone be unnoticed-- don't turn away any pile of dirt.  Take in the whole world as it is and let that brilliant brain sift and sift.  You'll find yourself more diamonds that way.

Two, she is a poet in the world where the protagonist lives.  The story goes that there was a moment in time when the life of the main character was SO up to chance that the timeline split in two and years later, he learns to travel back and forth between the two worlds.  When he lives, she is a poet.  When he is dead, she's depressed.  No she doesn't love him or anything!  He just ... affected her.  His mother being in the town affected her.  Him and her friend Leena dating affected her.  Her friend's husband becoming a fisherman instead of a banker due to the protagonist ALSO affected her.  Every single drop in that ocean sweeping over her and creating something different.  Every single drop in that ocean caused by one small event that was left to chance.

The event of the protagonist living or dying.

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Every moment of life is a drop in the ocean.  Make it good moment by moment by moment and you'll find a swelling tide of good, one drop at a time.  If you can't do it for you, do it for the NPCs around you ;)  They might just write a poem someday that gives purpose to all of your suffering.