rather than defer

The top image is from my notes on reading about Chris Marker's film work with the Rhodicetta workers. I can't remember who made the quote, perhaps Lukacs, but it refers to how culture needs to be part of workers struggle as well as what might be thought of as pure revolution. Its sentiment is universal: creativity is always pressured to wait for things to be set right. After we get these test scores up - we'll pay for the kids to have art and music; after I've earned money and raised kids - I'll get back to my painting. The deferral of creativity is written into the way we do things - or so society would tell us. But the need to be creative is with us from the beginning.This is undeniable, and also undeniable: we bracket that creativity off as soon as authorities hold our presence in questions. Kids get the memo in grade school and the memo is delivered throughout life. In the principle that people create their own prisons - that they arrest themselves, so it is that people defer their rights, their need for being creative - and make sure that others do as well.

Someone might say, "you need to face reality." Who doesn't want to face reality - but in this instance it is a reality pre-arranged. The officer of reality is his or herself caught in a fantasy. And it is a fantasy that creativity can be deferred and then engaged in. Creativity is the work of a lifetime. But what can be said for people who must work. We all must work. I think the gist of the idea is that While revolution is happening creativity must be mixed in.