Inspiration! Alain de Botton's "What is Art For?" Video

Apparently this week I like videos, because this week's inspiration is the video Alain de Botton made for The Guardian, wherein he explains what few people have dared to even ask - what the utilitarian function is of art.

Honestly, at first I bristled at the question.  "Why does everything need to have a purpose?", I mentally argued, "Can't some things just be?  Just exist for the sake of existing?  Art doesn't have to serve a purpose, it's just there because we create it, and we just create it because..." and then I realized that I was about to say that it inspires us or gives us meaning or, heck, even just something to look at/listen to/think about once and a while.  All things that are functions, or purposes, to art.

Well, dang.  I guess I can't get all up on a high horse about how art should just exist for the sake of existing - something I don't even believe anyways, so who knows why I was arguing for it.

Go watch the video on The Guardian's website here and find out what art does for us.