Bookmark #725
by deepansh khurana
Our friend Deepansh Khurana is back with his usual deep and thought provoking journal entry, this one relevant for the artists of the world. Deepansh is the mind behind the publication journal.coffee and a fellow philosopher, colleague, flaneur, and bohemian, in the Soaring Twenties Social Club with me. In journal.coffee, Deepansh explores personal feelings and thoughts regarding life —with a new issue on most days.
This article originally appeared here. I’m sharing it with BoldBrush Artists because Deepansh has explored some interesting truths about the importance and realness of art and artists in this piece and he has graciously agreed to let us republish it for The BoldBrush Letter subscribers. We’ve made today’s post, and comments open to all members, including our free members. This is Deepansh at his best- lyrical, wise, observant, searching, and with not a single capital letter anywhere in sight.
Editor’s Note: In a few days, this post will be locked and is available only to paid members because we don’t want this duplicate content on the open web in a way that might draw traffic away from the original post. If you are not a BoldBrush Circle member, you can still read the entire post here.
in life, you meet a variety of people who do various things, but sit down with a marketer for thirty minutes, and it will be enough. you will learn everything they are and everything they have to say in just half an hour. why is that? because it is a job of make-believe, and worse, it is a job that, more often than not, is nefarious. it is the equivalent of the character in some fable who first appears friendly on the first few pages but later turns out to be the antagonist. where arts and sciences are the heart and the head of humanity, marketing is the appendix. we could do with fewer marketers, analysts, and fewer pretend jobs. the world needs more artists and thinkers and more engineers and tinkerers.
in saying artists, i do not mean those who merely practice a skill but those who use their medium to say something. there is always a difference between the two. the artist and the craftsman are different, and they can identify who is who really well. but the waters are muddier for the world, and often, i notice people cannot tell the two apart. and when i say engineer, i do not necessarily mean those with a degree but people who think like an engineer. it could be your local macgyver who builds things that make the lives of others easier in one way or another, too—using their skill to do something.
to say and do something meaningful built what we call the world today. the others came along recently and have managed to infiltrate and fool us all. they say that we will soon be out of a job soon. but the arts and sciences will remain till the end of time, for it is essential to the human spirit to think of something new and to build something that makes living easier. that is all our species has been consistently good at.
no, threatened are those who will soon be exposed for who they are: frauds with pretend jobs that change nothing on their best days and everything for the worse on others. never before has humanity been more filled with people responsible for so much of nothing, and now, it seems they are all scared. but the arts and the sciences will remain as they have, and they will adapt to the world around them and push it forward as they have.
“ arts and sciences are the heart and the head of humanity, marketing is the appendix. we could do with fewer marketers, analysts, and fewer pretend jobs.
the world needs more artists and thinkers and more engineers and tinkerers.”
Deepansh Khurana
As with so many things, marketing is not intrinsically bad, it’s what you do with it and how you use it that matters. If you are positively involved in Clint’s enterprise at any level - I myself am a free subscriber, hoping to build up enough inventory to get a website through him soon - I doubt if you see what he does and what he offers as bad. In fact, you probably see it as downright good!
All things that mankind does, that is in a positive direction, comes from either his brain or his heart (or soul).
All things created do not necessarily ALWAYS include the heart.
Facts, data, details, etc come from the MIND.
Beauty, passion, feelings, delicate things, come from the SOUL.
To create a building takes knowledge of structure, materials, etc. BUT to have a BEAUTIFUL building is created from connecting to things not seen, from the soul.
Writing is the same: mere chatter only requires a brain and mouth that work together. But to write poetry, or stories, or movies, develops from one’s soul, from inner feelings, not mere “facts”.
Painting or the “finer arts” is the same. There are those who want to impress others (or even themselves), and their creations have a shallow existence. Whereas paintings created from observation and delivered with passion and discovery, there is an unspoken energy that goes beyond words.