These thoughts swirl around in my head

I am a person of great optimism in this world, but I have to ask the question: Are desperate times always upon us? Can humanity produce great works in the face of despair? I contest that the best art comes from the greatest hardships. For example, if Beethoven wrote his Ninth Symphony (in honor of which they retired the number) whilst losing his hearing, which most composers would call a setback, is this not proof that the biggest obstacles in life are also the very peaks that greatness ascends?
Although I am not a particular fan if his work, Thomas Kinkaid is legally blind and yet has become the top-selling painter in human history. At least I assume he's legally blind. So personal misfortune cannot be said to foil creative endeavor. "The springs and freshets of Art will bubble up to wet the stoniest ground", if you must put it that way. But are all great works accomplished in the face of hardship?

The Arts with a capital 'A' have sustained the human spirit through some pretty stiff crises. The exquisite freedom of the expressionist painters in the face of an era bounded by authoritarianism, rectilinear thinking, and mechanized war, for example. Not artwork understood by the masses, but a refuge nonetheless for the willing initiate, or anybody on barbiturates. The masters of the Renaissance emerged in times of religious intolerance, political instability, and woolen tights. Before their time the cathedrals of Europe rose from the mire of a millennium of disease, chaos, cruelty, and despair. And people in all of those times thought the End was Nigh.

Art is an expression of that hopefulness. Art is also a way of grappling with the alternative, with destruction and dissolution itself. But if Art may be said to be an expression of both hope and despair, it can also be said to express all facets of the human condition. Even in our species' current extremity, what with the failing light of democracy in America, recession, xenophobia, ten-dollar valet parking, and the suffocation of the living Earth, Art will bloom.

The worse things get, the more vital Art becomes, although real estate is still more lucrative. If the Church has failed us, Art still remains. If men become beasts while governments turn (as they always will) to self-perpetuation at any cost, if commerce lubricates its gears with death (it's cheaper than machine oil and has the same viscosity at working temperatures), Art can overcome. Art can lead the way to hope from despair. We can therefore hope that the cathedrals of our time will yet rise.

My musings are over.