I returned to Tajikistan with a new mindset.

With an understanding of impermanence and fragility of everything, and choice to appreciate it fully anyway.

With commitment instead of attachment.

With a clear comprehension that I have a choice - to hide from the world’s suffering, or to confront it and try to lessen it.

With a Socratic approach to all the old and new questions, and a willingness to embrace temporary answers without mistaking them for final truths.

With hard-earned knowledge that it’s possible to find these answers, even though there are no “right” universal answers baked into the fabric of reality.

College experience has taught me that if you look for something, you will find it. Look for cynicism - you’ll find it, look for kindness and solidarity and you’ll find them too. You see what you seek. Our beliefs play a large role in determining our experience and our actions, so if we believe ourselves powerless and without agency, we will act in a way that it makes it so. We can consciously choose which truth to build upon, knowing all narratives are partial, and build, deconstruct, and rebuild our structures of meaning.

Art-making and creative process showed me time and time again - everything is figure-able. We can find solutions to everything when we use creative methods. If we see that our actions don’t bring us the desired outcome, we can let our minds soar freely, change perspectives, and realize there are unexpected, out of the box ways to get to this outcome. We try a different approach, we mix techniques, and we go through an iterative process that might produce even better outcomes than originally conceived.

But if we use the same set of actions and operate from the same paradigm over and over, we cannot fix our artwork. We can’t arrive to a new outcome by repeating what hasn’t worked, and that’s one of the major reasons why history is so important - we can learn what works, and what doesn’t. Neoliberalism cannot eradicate poverty. Neocolonialism cannot bring the outcome of self-determination to Global Majority. Authoritarian governments cannot deliver self-actualization to its citizens or guarantee peace with its neighbors. Systems that incentivize unethical behavior cannot produce equality and social cohesion. And so on.

Another reason why history is important is because it can be a source of well-informed hope. It provides context for today’s darkness, and reveals precedents that prove that whatever is happening now, is overcome-able. Once we master tolerating the discomfort of learning about other people’s suffering, history becomes an indispensable tool against despair.

And the more one learns about the hard work of the people who came before us, thanks to whom we can enjoy more rights and protections, the more one realizes they are deeply and meaningfully connected to the previous generations - and that their current actions can have an impact too.

We can acknowledge that there is no magically perfect, fool-proof way to organize a society that will work universally, but still work to get rid of all forms of violence and enable everyone to realize their self potential in a way they see fit, while trying new approaches, like in a creative process, to solve old issues - or maybe even create something that empowers each person in an entirely new way.

We can create our own meaning in the meaningless universe - and art is one of the most fulfilling and accessible ways to do it.

Fleeting Moment

Photograph