Art as Imitation of Life

And how it connects us to each other

Mind Candy is a newsletter on practical philosophy and human flourishment—aka how to live the “the good life.” Each month we tackle a new theme. This month we’re exploring creativity.

One of the greatest lessons any of us can take from life is understanding the simple notion that art imitates it.

From the earliest of times, art has been there to help humans make sense of the world they inhabit. As we’ve grown as a species, being able to lean into this ability has become more and more crucial to our existence.

Stories are there as a way for us to understand the nuances and situations we’ve encountered. Because we can only truly know something from our own perspective, we see things, as Anaïs Nin put it, as we are.

But stories also help break that self-centered mode of thinking and force us to encounter the world differently, seeing it from multiple perspectives, in different scenarios, but still relating back to our own human condition.

“Art is the only way to grasp another’s experience of the world and to have our own experience of the world grasped by others,” the philosopher Richard Rorty once wrote.

This is why we’re always drawn into the story, we see a resemblance of our own existence portrayed and want to better understand.

When someone takes us by the hand with their art, they form a connection. They guide us to an existence we’ve experienced but may not be able to properly articulate.

This connection is critical because it reminds us that we’re not alone, that others too experience things like we do and we can therefore come to better understand our own place in this mad mad world.

“The purpose of art,” James Baldwin wrote, “is to lay bare the questions that have been hidden by the answers.”

We’re all in search of a better understanding of our existence. Art is the key to this. It connects us to ourselves, to others, and to the shared experience of life.

The next time you’re looking for answers to a problem, the solution might just be to find the right piece of art.

Until next time,

D.A. DiGerolamo

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