What is Art?

Art is like a million different ways of sending a secret message to ourselves to tell us that the house is on fire. We know this intellectually, but the mind tries to minimize the impact. It invents pastimes, habits, wars, gossip, drama, toys and social gatherings to block out the reality of the burning house. It's so hard to wake this mind up.

So that's the message: the house is on fire. You are in a very precarious position. You are really here, and you are really going to die someday. But the worst part isn't the dying; it's the not realizing you're actually alive right now. You're letting it all go by you like it's somebody else's movie and somebody else that's gonna die.

Read the graffiti on the wall. It's written in a thousand different languages, and in a thousand different colors. It's scrawled in blood and dirt and paint by millions of little hands. And it says the same thing over and over: the house is on fire.

God as landlord

If God exists, and we are His children, then it is like the world is the property, we are the tenants and God is the deadbeat Landlord.

None of the roommates have seen Him (though there are a few unconfirmed reports made from nights of extreme intoxication, and most of these stories contradict each other).

When something breaks down we ask Him to repair it, but He never gets back to us. So after all the blaming and swearing and cursing the Landlord's name, we always end up having to fix whatever's wrong ourselves.

If we do get to meet the Landlord, it is before we move in and after we move out.