The artist exists on the periphery of our conscious lives, on the outskirts, warmed and degenerated through his striving to seek. This great search leads him, in a society such as ours, to live in permanent turmoil, as this anxiety functions as the bridge between his creations and his physiological downfall.

The need for the artist is fundamental in our society, despite him having little influence on the socioeconomic and political realms that define mankind’s momentum and shape the priority-driven game modes of our lives. His service is greatly rewarded, yet his inner processes are largely abandoned by society. The surface of his inner life is ruined by external daggers of language and image projection. He carries within him a skeptical view of his own existence, as if he is spying on another entity within his body—some other deliverer of soul, a vessel of sorts for an ethereal source of conscious medium. His entire life is spent trying to make contact with this source, for when he does, the gates of genius are opened, and our society is renewed individually.

As art favors this aim, its direction is implemented on the individual level and, in turn, moves the collective. This is how artistic movements are made and carried forward. Each year—and, in our modern era, each month—new forms of art and genres are defined, despite all stemming from the same specific intentions, often from the same mind in different bodies. Therefore, as our souls are reflections, these great artistic minds that inherit our history are ours.

They come from the singular artist—the one mad enough to alchemize himself onto the material—who is shunned and ridiculed. Yet, through this process, the very callings of his supernatural searchings are wielded further, imbued into the embroiled flesh of his work. His artistic prowess as a discipline to overcome himself succeeds through the judgment of the flock.

Strangely enough, his intention to be judged is the pillar of his framework. He relies on the flock, for he desires to liberate them from their shackles. His eyes are new, and theirs seem old; he sees what others cannot, and he is bound to them as all: slave, master, and guide.

For every genius who has lived, they have suffered greatly. This reveals that the artist’s journey through these channels of the human condition entails greater burdens for himself in for the eventual achievement of liberating the masses after they he has left the earth. We seek their vision, and their purpose proposes a new mind, a new hope. The loneliness of the mad one, who seeks the prayers of his own visions—the shaman in action—is dreamt to suffer alone until he rises from the dead, and humanity, at last, celebrates his findings.

I assume that at our cores, we are all these artistic types. We possess instincts to implement life in a manner different from how we carry and live through it daily. We abide by this distinction between our identities and freedoms, understanding them to be free, yet we dare to harmonize with the true callings of these freedoms. If man is animal, his art is his beast upon the physical. However, whatever form this takes becomes our imprint on the earth—the fever of cosmic dancing, shattering the ropes of spirit bound to strive.

The artist is abused because his story is absent from the scripts of these social and economic gulags we name industry. The true artist is a thief of humanity; he steals everything from everyone and turns his crime against the species into a pharmakon, an elixir that may take centuries to deliver to the right minds. In return for his crimes, this poison no longer carries its deadliness. The prima materia is the secret the artist guards from humanity

Yet, during his waking hours, the torment and shame of his destiny estrange his serenity from the gates of fate. He serves no purpose to himself, and therefore he must live to suffer. Only through the completion of his work does his name live, as a feature of his identity. I ask that we call upon this life of ours in this manner, for we all serve the same purpose, though few are daring enough to perform its rites for the mass benefit of harmony between all. In the sacred hours of your final moments, the soul shall be set free.