(08-07-2025, 05:06 PM)Sean Wrote: I watched this video a while back, and would love to chat about its ideas here. If you don’t want any current events stuff, skip to 1:27.
https://youtu.be/TNI92D_fvO8?si=9KE_xMNRoi3vlq3i
The presenter, Struthless (a creativity-focused self-improvement blogger; his channel started as a way to use creativity to promote his sobriety) discusses how exciting developments in art often follow times of social/economic crisis. How wonderful that his great, timeless example of this that appears near the video’s end is Dante! (..)
So many big things here!
And lots of truth to the video as well. Dante's masterpiece certainly comes out of both hardships in exile, and his falling away from the spiritual life for maybe 15-20 years. He's quite explicit about the value of exile in terms of purgating his Superbia and somewhat inflated ego (which can be felt in places in e.g. Vita Nuova). And he would never have understood the fullness of Reality as he did - without being captured by Pride, and saved through Grace, and going through deep regret and repentance.
And I do believe in a new Renaissance or Restoration from now! Mainly because of maybe four-five centuries of "unnatural" and an increasingly reductive left hemispheric culture. To the point where the capacity for perceiving reality has become severely limited.
But we likely need a new "Medici" family/dynasty too! Someone who can support the broader more balanced culture, the generative and joyful one, and make it a mainstream or dominant strain of the culture.
At the same time, I'm also seeing more opportunities now to generate and participate in a New Renaissance and Age of Restoration in the private sphere - with a small community! And in a way, this might even become the world one "lives in" in to some extent. Restoring the dual perception of reality with Dante, discovering works like Imola (just recently) that confirms how much has been lost and hidden, and experience the healing effects of rebirthing the soul!