Changing the world without talking about the world

A fairly well-known rapper dropped by the house. Some artist friends brought him along for a barbecue. Art, music, conversation.

Until he got stuck on one subject: governments, geopolitics, wars, that endless conflict on the other side of the world.

And it's not that we disagreed. In fact, we agreed on almost everything.

The problem was that he couldn't get out of it.

Hours on the same thing. A few drinks in, every conversation ended up back in the same place.

At one point I raised my voice, which I rarely do, and I told him:

You work with bars, rhythm, sound, cadence. I work with color, light, form and perception.

If there's something in the world you can't stop thinking about, do something with it. Put it in a song. Build something out of it.

But repeating an opinion for six hours is not doing anything.

I don't think an artist has to live cut off from what's going on. Quite the opposite. You have to look, understand, absorb.

But then you have to transform.

Our real capacity to intervene in most of those big conflicts is minimal. Our capacity to decide where we put our attention is not.

We can add more noise to the noise, or we can make something worth paying attention to.

Something precise. Something new. Something that opens a different possibility in the head of whoever finds it.

You don't need to constantly explain what you think. The work should carry part of that weight.

If you're a musician, make music. If you're a painter, paint. If you're a writer, write.

And if an idea really is that important to you, prove it by making something with it.

Cobbler, stick to your last.