Elsewhere

I saw Tori Amos at the grocery store
today. She walked right by me, shopping cart and all. I was slightly
star struck. She was an almost mythological figure in my mind, an
incredible and unique talent who existed in the stratosphere of musical
and artistic expression, a creative force that had expanded my
awareness of and sensitivity to the female perspective, but here she
was just a normal person buying fresh produce to cook for dinner,
breathing the same air, making eye contact, within touching
distance–just as small and vulnerable as me and everyone else, and
otherwise completely unremarkable except for the fact that my brain
attaches the image of her face to a chain of ideas and impressions that
link deep into my psyche.

It was humbling and inspiring at the
same time, to realize how much influence some artwork has had over my
thoughts and perspectives without me really knowing it, and also
realizing that all the people who had created the artwork which has
influenced me were just people, not gods or demons or abstract,
intangible concepts, the way that they exist in my head. Just people,
creating art.

The kind you might bump into at a grocery store;
the kind you might already be friends with. The kind you might be for
other people–perhaps without either them or you realizing it.

[end anecodote]
[begin tangential cognition]

We
all influence each other in both mundane and profound ways–even people
we may have never met. None of us are as alone or isolated as we might
think. This is a concept I am learning.

It is reinforced by a reading I attended last night. A young woman has written a novel (Jane: A Murder,
by Maggie Nelson) about her experience investigating the murder of her
aunt, which happened before the author was born and yet has haunted her
for years. Could the murderer have known that his actions would color
the life of someone yet to be born, who would publish a novel about it,
thus spreading the event’s influence to all of the readers’ lives, and
to anyone with whom the readers discuss the novel, including a blog
post 40 years later that somehow links the event to Tori Amos, and
someone Googling for Tori Amos might happen upon said blog post and
become aware of the event, and they might tell someone else, et cetera
ad infinitum? A single moment creating a ripple effect through the art,
records, and minds of countless individuals. An extreme example,
perhaps, but how many minor actions do we take every day which ripple
through other people’s lives in completely unexpected, beautiful and
horrible ways? Perhaps art is one way of managing the impact of these
ripples in our own lives by dispersing them into others’ lives.

I
suppose celebrities are considered powerful because of how much
influence (or “mind share”, as marketers call it) they have over a
large number of people. They create big ripples. But they are just
people trying to make it through life like the rest of us; the ripples
just happened to converge upon them in a way that caused them to
resonate back out even stronger.