What’s new? A good question. In fact I feel stymied by this question I have just asked myself.
My mind ranges over various areas of life and I keep stumbling over the same thing ; really nothing is new. Human antagonism in all its forms from the singular to the global is still there.
The arts? New forms of abstract art and art installations?
Music? New forms of pop music or classical compositions ?
Dance? New contemporary dance choreography?
Fashion? New seasons expressing something utterly different?
Film? New concepts in that medium?
When I look at it all I don’t see anything new. I see many variations on a theme but I don’t see anything absolutely new. We have had the impact of the computer and also of scientific discovery, but I am not sure what change this has really brought to us. Has our experience of life really changed dramatically? Maybe this was also said by those living in the 1920s and 1950s and 1960s.
Nothing is happening now like the new concepts within art , literature and fashion and film which took place in the 1920s and again in the 1950s and 1960s along with the new musical changes and fashion changes at those times also. Maybe only “The New” is something which is FELT as being dramatically new. Of course, this is always the case with love… falling in love, being in love. This state of heightened awareness imbues us with the sense of the new.
So I now seem to be talking about a “sense” of the new. Okay, that has clarified something; it doesn’t actually need to be something new; just experienced as something new. So apart from a new love relationship, how do we keep experiencing this sense of the new?
My feeling is that it catches us out when we are not looking. Suddenly something touches us and gives us a feeling of energy and optimism. It can come from any source; the sun suddenly coming out, a mountain range viewed in its splendour, the singular concoction of a mix of colour on a fabric … and so it goes on.
So the new is not about something appearing in the world as a completely new entity, but rather it is the interaction between our own completely individual perception and the fleeting connection with something outside of us; in that split second, a miracle happens and a truly new sense of our world is felt. We are newly born to our world in that moment experiencing that moment as something “new”.
So when we are asked casually “what’s new?” how easy is that answer?
