Worth Fighting For

One of the first pieces of writing I read of MB's was her Master's thesis from the University of Edinburgh.  It was a paper on some local industrial architecture of times past.  What struck me about the writing wasn't just that it was readable to the layperson, but that it was empathetic to the lives of regular people for the time and place she was examining.

Now she's going on some thrilling job interviews for art history positions and it's gotten me thinking about art history and finding the job of one's dreams.

I don't know what history is if it isn't the story of a society's art, writing, music, theatre--its culture.  It's all commentary on a culture's philosophy.  It provides invaluable insight into the way they fought wars and elected Prime Ministers or anointed kings and queens.

But all that warfare and politics stuff is all supposed to be in the service of a society's culture and way of life anyway.  Who were the people you're studying?  What were their hopes and dreams?  What did they do to provide food, shelter, and clothing for their kids?  How did they laugh, love, fight, cry, and die?  There is nothing worth fighting for if not the ways in which we express our passion.  Without art there is nothing.

I say this because some people criticize art history as somehow less valid than other concentrations.  Even if art history is somehow less valid, so what?  I've wanted my whole life to get paid to do something even in the ballpark of what I love.  I'd die for that.  If I can inject my work at a medical office with humanity, or show some creative flourishes at the MOS, then I can tell myself that I'll get there some day.

John Lennon said it best, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."  It's a really god damn hard thing to do, but you have to adapt your life to circumstances.  This is by no means giving up or closing doors but learning about yourself--learning the wonderful gifts you never knew you had.  The world is a beautiful place if you allow yourself to look hard enough, if you allow yourself to step off the dirt path of life and trip and fall into the brambly grass where you can find a tree with the most delicious oranges you've ever tasted.