Image by Taylor Burnett from Pixabay
There’s a quandary at the heart of entertainment, and recent events with Ed Sheeran’s concert tour of the Americas illustrate it perfectly.
Hold that thought.
A Buddhist student once asked their master, “How can I be happy in a world where so many are suffering?” And the master said, “It does the world no good for you to add one more unhappy person. Allow yourself some light, so that you can then share it with others.”
Then again, at what point does that become picnicking on the lawn of a burning house with people locked inside?
Yet without joy, we lose our humanity. Particularly now, in authoritarian times, joy is an act of resistance.
Okay, back to Ed. Recently P!nk asked Ed to drop the rapper Macklemore from the tour, after he shouted “Free Palestine!” during a performance. Sheeran’s tour promoter insisted upon it. As I’m writing this post, four other bands have dropped out in solidarity with Macklemore. Sheeran and Macklemore still speak of each other as friends (as do the rest of the bands), but there’s a critical disagreement at the heart of their artistries.
Sheeran wants to keep a safe space for attendees to escape politics and simply participate in joy. Macklemore’s music includes protest for social justice. And the bands who have dropped out clearly prize that same activism. (The motives of Sheeran’s tour promoter, billionaire Robert Kraft, are perhaps more suspect.)
So I’m brought back to the metaphorical question of light, and how and where to shine it.
I’ll be honest, the past 10 years have driven me to a point of mental unhealth. Every day is a struggle to escape the rut of heartbreak with current events, my limited ability to change their course, and frustration toward family and former friends who support them. My every bedtime requires discipline to hold onto something pleasant; my every waking requires that discipline immediately again.
Which is to say that the flame of my joy is guttering. And I still haven’t figured out how to divide its remaining light between creation and activism. Nor can my soul survive at the expense of one over the other.
This website is my 26-year journal of that struggle.
Hold onto your loved ones. As long as you have someone in this world you love, you can be okay. They are not a solution to all problems, but a shelter from the storm.
I’m in the same situation, Lester, minus the 26 year blog. If I understood the world in 2000 the way I did in the past ten years, I wouldn’t have had kids. My heart aches for what I brought them into. I would have tried to adopt kids instead.
I think Sheeran’s silence, when he could speak out without losing his multi-millionaire status, amounts to allegiance to the status quo.
On the bright side, this has put the genocide back in the spotlight. And to his everlasting credit, Macklemore makes it clear he loves Jewish people everywhere and only opooses Zionism.