The reason we like second rate art is that it's better than we can do.

Have you ever walked through an art museum with an artist friend who told you all the reasons that a painting you loved was inferior to an earlier version done by a master?

Have you ever listened, in rapt attention, to a concert with a musician friend who pointed out later that all the pieces were done better by a symphony in London or New York or wherever?

Have you ever talked about a novel you'd just read, and loved, with an English Ph.D. friend, who raised an eyebrow at your reading choice?

We've all been through variations of these scenarios. What they mean is that most of don't know much about literature or art but, as the old saying goes, we know what we like. And we know that we couldn't, in our wildest dreams, paint or write or sculpt or score anything nearly as good.

That's why we like what we like, and it's an honest response/assessment. We don't come to the arts with pre-concieved notions, with intellectual baggage. Our reaction is purely personal. We like what we like because it connects with us, whoever we are at that point in our life, on a level we can't talk about. We just like it!

But we have to realize that there really are people who have studied painting or literature or sculpture or whatever and who know how what someone did centuries ago fits with what someone did yesterday. They visualize the whole history of art. So we should recognize and acknowledge their authority and pay them their due. But we don't have to accept their judgment when it clashes with our own.

The best art, the lasting art, has always not only enlightened but also entertained, so you and I are free to read the novels of Grisham or Koontz instead of McCarthy and Proulx (who are THEY?) and to collect little hand-painted dolls instead of original oil paintings and to listen to Enya all night before we'd think of putting on something by Brahms played by some big-name orchestra or symphony -- and what's the difference between the two anyway?

I'm primarily a writer, so I'm kind of snob about what I read and don't read, but I'm a total novice/fool/bumpkin when it comes to any of the other arts. I don't read Grisham and Koontz, but I'm "blown away" by walking through a college art department showing student work. Whoa! How did that guy or girl -- a third my age! -- manage to capture just that right image of the old man on the sofa? Look at the color! I could never do that! And is that a flower? Or is it a head? Something interesting is going on here.

In the wings, my art history major friend clucks. How could I be so naive? "I may not know art," I say, "but I know what I like." My know-it-all art friend sneers. "What you like is shit. Let's go get a beer, and I'll explain."

When I hear ANY orchestra or symphony (what's the difference?) play any "classical" work, I think it's the best I've ever heard. My music major friend stands offstage, rolling her eyes.

We all encounter the arts -- anything creative, from making birdhouses to writing plays -- but we don't all STUDY them. That makes those who do a lot smarter than the rest of us about the history of that particular genre and maybe what to look for or at in a particular painting or piece of sculpture or story.

But it doesn't, or shouldn't, stop the rest of us from enjoying the arts ON OUR LEVEL, meaning: better than I can do. And appealing to me in a way I can't describe. It would look good on my office wall, okay? It works for me. Is it derivative of Monet? So be it!

I can't sing at all, so I love almost anybody's voice, and I have no idea whose is "better" than any other. To me, Hank Williams is the equal of Pavarotti, and Emilou Harris is as good as any opera singer. All I know is that both their voices were WAY better than mine, so I'm free to pick and choose among them with no guilt, only pleasure.

What all of this means is that there are two ways to look at any work of art: the scholar's way and the average person's way, the latter being the buying/seeing/appreciating public. And of course there are those in the middle who know something about the art but aren't scholars and who can advise us "bottom feeders" (me with music, for sure) on what to listen to and for, what to see, etc. They can be valuable guides, but they all come with their own tastes and biases, so beware.

In the end, we should read and see and listen to what appeals to us, what makes us feel better, but be open to the idea that we might heed the advice of those of have devoted whole lives to the study of the arts and, once in a while, take their advice on something or other. It won't hurt, and it might just ratchet us up another notch, challenge us, while still keeping us entertained.

Above all, enjoy the arts. That's why they were created and continue to be created, for the most part by people who have no expectation of making a dime from their efforts. They're just trying to get us to share their vision of something that may not exist but that maybe should or could.

So why does all that made-up stuff sometimes seem more real than life? Why does a novel or play or poem or painting or song stick with us when all our real relationships have ended?

What's THAT all about?

It's all about art, and it's a grand mystery, so just sit back and enjoy it. One of life's gifts, to make up for all the misery and confusion of our real lives. Someone has imagined a different reality, and sometimes it's better, or more interesting, than our own.

Sit back, with a glass of wine or a beer, or just good company -- or even silence -- and enjoy.

Don't drive a car that's cooler than you.

When I was in high school, a couple of my friends' daddies bought them brand new cars with all the latest equipment. Really cool cars. The problem was that the guys were both nerdy, and when they drove the cars around town, all attention was on the cars. They were hoping to get hot girls interested but ended up driving around with a bunch of guy friends who were more interested in the cars than the girls were.

These guys were nice enough, but they were driving cars that were -- to put it bluntly -- cooler than they were. The hot girls, whether they realized it or not at the time, were looking for future mates, fathers of their future children. They were on the make for hot guys, not hot cars.

The lesson is this: don't advertise yourself as more than you are. Don't project an image you can't later live up to. Sooner or later, you'll be found out. It doesn't matter if you're a teen trying to look like a TV idol or a twenty-something trying to look like someone out of a fashion mag or a fifty-ish guy with his first convertible. It may make you feel good to pretend to be someone you're not, but it likely won't fool whoever you're trying to impress.

(With one exception: see below.)

Life is complicated, and searching for appropriate mates is one of the most complicated things we humans do. So don't confuse the process by posing as someone you aren't. Be confident that if you come across as who you are -- driving a clunker, wearing faded Levi's, into hiking -- you're more likely to attract, and maybe even keep, someone who appreciates you for yourself.

Okay, I know all this is the old hippie view: be yourself, and someone who is your equal and soul mate will eventually discover you, or you him/her. That may or may not be true, but it's an honest approach to the iffy world of mating. Maybe I'm just being naive about what it's like today, when people meet in cyberspace, but I come from a time when we knew each other, in person, at least for a while, before we had coffee, much less sex. That doesn't mean we didn't sleep around, pretty indiscriminately at times, but we had at least first met face to face.

And I don't recall a hippie I knew who drove a really cool car.

In the end, be who you are, and keep looking for somebody who loves you for it. If, after a while no one seems to love you, maybe you need to look at who you are and make some changes. But,
in the meantime, keep looking. Be persistent. Stay clean. Be honest. There are some amazing couples out there, defying all odds but still together.

Oh, by the way, there is an exception to this rule, as there are exceptions to every rule: If you are an older man with lots of money -- no names mentioned, but you know who you are, Mr.
Trump and Mr. Hefner, et al -- you can always find plenty of pretty young women to have sex with you and even marry you, but you know as well as I do that they're looking for something other than love. A lifestyle, maybe. Don't you?

Be yourself -- your best self -- and go for the best you can get. Hey, you might end up doing better than you thought. And if you're honest from the start, you'll have nothing to apologize for later and nothing to explain. That's what real love is all about.

That's where the real adventure starts. Good luck!

Let's re-think eternal damnation.

I grew up going to Sunday school and, when I couldn't avoid it, church service. And it doesn't seem to matter what denomination or what creed or -ism you subscribed to: there was always the awful promise that if you didn't do what you were supposed to do, in accordance with the particular rules of your religion, there would be hell to pay. Literally.

I was always uncomfortable with the idea that your earthly sins would damn you to an eternal punishment. That seemed way too harsh, considering that we humans come into the world knowing nothing and don't learn nearly enough before we're gone. An eternity of torture for sins of ignorance or mental incompetence or disease is in no way compatible with any compassionate religion. Shouldn't there be a point at which you can repent and be, if not forgiven, at least not damned to burn forever?

Say you were sorry -- and mean it -- and promise to do better in an afterlife?

Most of us probably don't give much credence to an eternal hell, but I think a modified version would serve us all well. Suppose you were sent to hell -- however you imagine it -- for just a certain period, like a jail or prison sentence. A year or ten or longer. But because the eternal pain you would have to endure is, in theory, so extreme, how about just a month? A week?

Would seven straight days of torture make you repent all your sins? How about five minutes?

In other words, how much afterlife pain and trauma would it take to make you understand the sorrow you'd brought to others and make you swear to come back, in the next life, as a better person? Not just because you'd endured all that awfulness but that you -- finally -- understood what it felt like to those you'd inflicted it on. I'm thinking that five minutes of being raped and stabbed to death, in the face and throat, over and over, might leave even the most sadistic rapist weeping for his sins. Eye for an eye. But for (very) limited times.

I don't think hell is worth much as a concept unless it includes the chance to redeem yourself, any more than I think heaven can mean eternal peace and happiness. Come on: How many people do you know who deserve un-ending glory? Even the best of us, being human, screw up from time to time. Shouldn't our time in heaven or hell be dependent on how much we screwed up, and how often, and how much we felt sorry about it later, or how often we rose above our own selfish instincts and then fell back later into our old ways? Maybe we should just be sent to hell or be let into heaven for a little while, and then we're cast back down into this imperfect life again, to prove ourselves all over again.

Conditional heaven; conditional hell. A sentence but not a life, or eternal life, sentence.

A few days here, a few days there. Ultimate bliss or ultimate damnation. But just for a while

Should a president who started a war when he didn't need to be sentenced to an eternity in hell? Of course not. But wouldn't it be reasonable to think that he might have to spend a long weekend being treated for the same kinds of horrific wounds his policy had inflicted on so many young people? Loss of limb? Sight? Brain trauma? (Yes, this is politics, but politics is life, and you know it.) All our leaders who send young people into harm's way should spend some time in a hell of their own making, just to see what it was like. Friday through late Sunday of nothing but horrible pain. The kind that comes from having your legs blown off in an IED explosion and then waiting, maybe a long time, for help to come. Or the life-long misery of being blind or brain-injured; a real burden to the fiancee or wife or husband who married you, before the war, with someone much more complete and competent in mind.

A long weekend and then some.

So what do we do with the real villains of history? Hitler and Stalin, whose mis-placed ideas of world domination almost brought life as we know it to an end? How long do they get to spend in hell? Weeks? Months? Years?

Do you know someone who could use five minutes in hell? Someone who abused his children even when he knew better? Someone who stole from loved ones who were in need themselves?
Someone who said something about somebody else that ruined that person's life? Maybe me. Maybe you. A little severe punishment might jolt any of us into realizing our wrongs.

It's all just speculation. None of us has a clue why we're here or what's expected of us or how or if we're ever going to be judged. But because so many rascals here on earth are never punished, we have to imagine a dimension in which they will be. Again, it's only human.

But we should remember that whatever perfect system of judgment we imagine for others also applies to ourselves. Whatever hell you imagine for those you despise, imagine for yourself, too.
When you die, do you need a few minutes in hell to understand the suffering you've caused?

Of course this is all just ignorant hypothesizing. My real advice is to embrace the mystery and live the best life you can. We're all on this Mystery Tour together, no?