On feeling the divine in a work of art

Tue, 20 Feb 2024 19:42:00 -0400

Luke O’Neil has a way of putting his finger right on that thing about music or literature or whatever that’s so hard to pin down for so many of us. This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot as I’ve been back into reading so much more and have remembered again the way that the right song or album can completely turn a bad day good. From his newsletter today:

This probably applies to all of you – people in possession of human souls who have at least on occasion felt the divine in a work of art – but everything I write myself and everything I love to read or listen to or watch has one bedrock foundation to it which is this:

Oh my god I am alive right now and you are alive right now and someday we will not be but for the duration of this we are both stupidly and beautifully alive.

Please bear witness to my humanity and take some small portion of it for yourself.

humanities on Brett Seybert

On feeling the divine in a work of art