In a utopia, attitude is everything. If you’re suspicious, you’ll look for bad behavior. If you’re a complainer, you’ll pick out what’s wrong with everything. If you’re a hypochondriac, you’ll analyze every sniffle. If you’re arrogant or judgmental, you’ll see unworthiness. In other words, utopia is not a physical location, it’s a perspective.
What would you even do in a utopia? If through technology or magic, everything was provided for, what would a resident actually spend time doing? Creative endeavors like art, music, poetry? Hobbies? Spending time with others? Chatting (obviously not about politics or gossip)? Playing games or sports? Watching and performing stage-plays? Appreciating the natural beauty of the environment?
Or would residents do everything manually? Like gardening, preparing and cooking food, pottery, blacksmithing, weaving and sewing, candle-making, dealing with one’s own flaws as well as the flaws of others? Resource management? Health and nutrition?
Oftentimes in art, an artist takes something ugly and makes it beautiful. For example, when paint starts slapping on canvas, it looks kinda messy for awhile until the image starts to form. Or even in baking, a bowl of cake batter is just slop until it’s baked and shaped into a multi-tiered beauty. And of course a potter takes a dull lump of grey clay and spins it into a magnificent vase.
My point is this: I’m not supposed to be looking for utopia. I’m supposed to take something ugly and make it beautiful. My disheveled humanness with all its flaws is to be worked and prodded until something impressive appears. What constitutes “impressive”? I guess that’s up to me, the artist. What tools do I use? Again, I suppose that’s up to the artist – although the medium tends to influence the methodology.
To summarize: take something ugly and make it beautiful – that’s the path to fulfillment.
Whittlin' Rich 