Ever since I was young, I have found myself poring through books, comics, music, poems, historical texts, and films all in pursuit to understand the people and places around me. I find myself often lost in a world that seems to get crueler and crueler by the day, but through the lens of art and history, it appears as if it's always been this way.
The history of the world seems to boil down to who has what now and who has the power to take it tomorrow. It's a sad, cold, gray story until you begin to peel back the layers. Behind all that did happen: all the wars and famines, betrayals, genocides, assaults, there is a Tapestry of everything that everyone has ever felt or ever thought. And woven into the fabrics of this Tapestry is every story ever told. The stories weave in and out of one another, build atop one each other. At times, it's nearly impossible to tell where one story ends and the other begins.
I think this Tapestry is the kind of thing Gene Wilder sings about in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and I believe it's humanity's greatest treasure. Moreso than a compilation of everything we were, it's a projection of what we could be someday and the harmony we could live within. But first, we have to allow ourselves to imagine it.
