It Didn't Move Me

I had a small argument with my this new friend. His name is..., wait, I am trying to remember.. I know, it is really rude to forget someone's name, particularly, if he is your friend, but oddly, I feel that confessing to your friend, that you have forgotten his name, in just a few minutes of hearing it, by asking his name again, is even more rude. It is what actually happened. He told me his name, and few minutes later, I was struggling to remember his name. You guessed it right, if I had forgotten it as I met him, how can I remember his name now? I agree, but I thought, may be somehow, by a "convection of memories from unconscious to conscious", I get a spark of names, including him. The reason for this little confession is not to appear rude on screen though, but to prepare you for our small argument that we had. 

As soon as I learned about his diverse interests, I got interested to know his opinions about subjects, that only highly-opinionated individuals have (their well-defined definitions). I asked him, "How do you define arts?".... Without any hesitation and quiet confidently he replied, "Any work that move people (thoughtful pause!!!) is a work of art"... Just as his name didn't move me (it might be offensive for some, but that was may be the reason that my brain didn't have a space for it on the desktop of my mind, and removed it to some folder inside another folder in the least used drive, may be Drive- Z, or some place that I don't have access to it), his answer didn't move me either (Hey, I am not suggesting that, he himself was not a work of art: every human is a work of art, by every imaginable definition. It is just that I was trying to be... let me think of a proper word, "critical"... no, that is very soulless word, better to say, a nightmarish word for artists... what about a "learned person"... no, if I were so learned, then I would not ask that question, right?... OK, what about "curious"... YES!!! this is perfect... as anybody can be curious...neither rude, nor naive... all good :) OK, let's move on. So, I tried to be curious, and I asked him, again (while scratching my chin just to give my curiosity a visual expression), "What do you mean by moving people?" and soon tried to explain my question, "People are moved by wars, lawlessness, economic meltdowns, immigration, technologies, political entanglements and scientific theories that are in conflict with established beliefs more than Michael Angelo's Last Supper or by The Old Guitarist from Picasso's blue period?" ... He grinned (may be he was amused by my naive explanation), "Oh! You have a very narrow perspective of arts. What you are talking about, is fine art" ...He leaned his head towards me (May be he was feeling taller like Sarkozy at that moment) and continued, "Arts can as destructive as war waged by smart-machines that are created by best minds, or can be very constructive such as the three gorges dam. It can be just a theory that changes the self-image of humanity like theory of evolution, or a novel such as Harry Potter that expands imaginations to world of fantasies" .... Well, frankly, I was trying to come up with another more sensible question, but I was totally blank. May be, from my nervousness, he understood that I am ... well, again, I don't know what he guessed ... After a pause of silence, he further explained, "In short, humans are moved either by awe or by something beyond their control and both of them are work of art"... May be, I have been moved so many times, that I was not prepared to be moved again (I belong to the cradle of super-arts: a place famed for conflicts and wars since dawn of humanity, and may remain so till end of humanity, and I already had too much of it) by his definition of art. So, I changed the topic... (By the way, I was not moved at all ;) ....(Again, you guessed it right, the people like me, may be moved by smiles, kindness, and magnanimity, things that are getting scarcer by each passing day in our part of world than those super-works of arts)