“The bones are hard and by themselves seem dead and stony, but by rooting into and pulling against the skeleton, the rest of the body carries out all the motions of life.”
In getting over sickness, I always find myself picking up childhood books. Today as I languished (being sick is one of the few times at BU that I have languished) I started to reread Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card. It’s the sequel to the very popular Ender’s Game. This book, which I read when I was about 13, deals with much more esoteric topics than it’s predecessor. Ender’s Game is the story of young boys forced to fight in an army. Speaker for the Dead is set 3,000 years later among pseudo peace. The book deals with the conflict between religions, cultures, and races. Though set in space with no contemporary religions or cultures, the ultimate message of tolerance in the book is incredibly universal.
While I was reading it, I came across the above quotation. It was used to explain how progress and radical thinking are not at odds with the church. In fact, it is only because the church is so staunch that the progress has anything to push against. I wanted to share this quote with you, because I think it applies greatly to our art. I have often found myself furious with the “classics.” I can’t wait for people to get over the boring ways theatre has always been created, and to really break boundaries. Of course, if there were never any Greek dramas to start us off, I would be a puddle of skin and muscle on the floor, unable to propel myself forward. To push this metaphor further, it helps to remember that traditional and radical art are all part of the same body. The immediate struggle may feel like a fight, but it is, in fact, propelling an entire body forward into new ground.
Though I have spoken about this metaphor applying to art, I start with that only because this is an artist’s blog. The idea that our struggles are really a part of a greater moving whole can be applied to just about any discipline. Religion, economics, medicine. We will find greater peace as a world when we can see our one body. And perhaps it’s not necessary to denote bone or muscles, but the knowledge that we are achieving something larger than the immediate struggle is a powerful and profound one.
