We're Alive

Recently I read a rather popular book that I'm sure you've all heard about, at least in passing, anyway. It's called "Warm Bodies" and it's written by Issac Marion. There was a movie made based on the book and it was recently released on DVD/Blueray, etc. Actually, I was able to watch it today and while it was a little different from the book (they can't all be spot on) it was just as awesome.

I believe art can be found in anything, not just in traditional forms such as painting and drawing, but in stories, movies, nature, even human beings. Art can be found anywhere. This time I found art in a rather unlikely place; a book about zombies, apparently. It should be noted that I don't like zombie things. I don't like gore, I hate it when people are hurt, I hate it when innocent people and animals are subjected to awful things, even if it's not real because somewhere in the world, something awful is actually happening to someone or something. There is more than enough real horror in the world. Zombie related things have no appeal to me. But, this was different. This book, it's so much more than that. It's not about the simple gore one might expect from something zombie related. Some things are inevitable when death and zombies are involved but there was so much more, something much more important in this piece of art. I don't know what other people got out of it, but I took a lot away from this novel.

Zombies are everywhere. Not the traditional zombies that feast upon brains and human flesh but zombies none the less. Some people shuffle through their daily life, waking up to drag themselves to a job they hate, barely grunting passing conversations with co-workers they barely like, dragging themselves home to spouses they don't particularly love and maybe even children they're not particularly sure they wanted. They watch their TV's and stare at glowing technology screens, ignoring each other for the most part until they can drown themselves in sleep later that night only to start it all again the next morning. Everyday in the world, there are people like this. The zombies have already arrived, they simply aren't the kind we expected, the kind that were depicted in the popular 80's horror flicks that sometimes were more funny than scary. I'm looking at you, "The Return of the Living Dead." But they're there, they're here and they're just as horrifying. Warm Bodies shows us what it's like to be human; there are some of us that are too far gone, skeletons, their own self gone, completely cynical in the world to the point where they see no good in anything, anyone, and anyone who thinks differently will be berated and beat down in hopes that they'll "see the truth" and join the ranks of hallow adults who don't remember what it was to sit down and lose themselves in a crayon on a piece of paper, who look at these things as childish, beneath them, irrelevant, a waste of time.

Art is never a waste of time. Never.

Then there is the living. Bright and vibrant, kind and just, loving and understanding. The truly living can be hard to come by. Sometimes I think there are barely any of them left and other times people surprise me, giving me a little bit of hope for the future of the human race.

Then there are the zombies like R, the main character in Warm Bodies. These people, they remember, even just a little, what it was like before. But they're shadows of their former selves now, staggering through life, trying to connect with other people, trying to do something, to find out, what's wrong? Why did this happen? How do we go back to how it was? Before the weight of the world began to come down on our shoulders? We look at the living, we look at those who are too far gone; we're caught between. We want so badly to join those blossoming with life but is it inevitable that we turn into the others? The ones with no flesh of a personality left? Do we give up and join them? Or do we keep fighting to join those who are alive? Is it worth the fight? It's hard to say, because damn it, it's a hard ass fight. There are ups and downs and sometimes we can feel lost, as if we're spiraling towards that awful, subhuman race of people that rejects simple happiness. Then something happens. It could be incredibly large or the tiniest thing in the world, but something happens and we're brought back, close to the warmth, like a kind, comforting hug during a desperate time, a warm hand in the darkness pulling us out of the deep, dark well and back into the warm, safe light.

What keeps us alive? What keeps us from turning down that dark road or falling into that deep, dark well and staying there at the bottom? At the bottom of that well, so far from the surface we can't even see the sun anymore. It's a fight to come back from that, sometimes it's a fight to stay out of the well, or even just to stay away. But, even sitting on the edge of the well is better than lying at the bottom. The world can be a harsh place, horrible things can happen. Turn on the news, look around and see how people treat others, there are examples of hatred and just plain meanness in many places. But keep your eyes open, don't put the filter of "everything's bad" over your eyes. Keep looking, keep watching and you'll see something beautiful. It may be something huge, a person saving a life, something seemingly small like kind words or actions toward a random stranger, or even just the beauty of a lone flower in your yard that you didn't plant and have no idea how it got there. There is passion in life and passion is the striving force behind one thing in particular; art.

Without passion there wouldn't be the Arch de Triumph, the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo's David, Van Gogh's "Starry Night," Picasso's "The Dream," Edvard Munch's "The Scream," Saint Saen's Danse Macabre, Francesca Lia Block's "The Rose and the Beast: Fairy Tales Retold," Marina Abramovic's Rhythm 0 or even video games from the Professor Layton series (have you seen those hand drawn backgrounds?), to the 8-bit emotional and visual freakout that is Yume Nikki and the subsequent fangames inspired by it; even in their simplicity there is no mistaking the artistic passion that goes into some of those 8-bit games. Even cartoons are full of outstanding art, from The Misadventures of Flapjack with it's hand created, watercolor backgrounds to the colorful, whimsical world of Adventure Time complete with stories that squeeze at your heart as tears squeeze from your eyes (I Remember You, Simon and Marcy, I know those of you who have watched those two episodes know what I'm taking about). Every form of art has the passion of all the people behind the piece. Without passion, we begin to turn. Slowly we become those shuffling people, trying to make their way through life, trying to remember what it was like before, when things were different, when there were less things missing inside us.

Now I'm not saying we stay in the positive, living area constantly. We're human, our emotions fluctuate at the drop of a hat. Some days we'll wake up, get out of bed, look in the mirror and be Stewart Smalley.

Other days, we'll wake up and be like this.

We are human. Our emotions are broad on the spectrum, but feeling is good. Feeling means we're alive and we need to be alive. Being alive comes with happiness, anger, disappointment, joy, fear, terror, anxiety, depression, grief, amusement, wonder, every emotion one could think of and then some. Even if things hurt so much we're unsure how to go on, how to keep moving, as long as we're breathing and taking the tiniest steps each day then we're still moving in the right direction. Art imitates life, art will encompass all the passion of every emotion inside us. Emotions are passion, passion creates art, living creates emotion, emotions create passion.


Keep creating. Stay passionate. Stay alive. Never give up.


~Olivia B.