The squeaking soles of my sneakers echoed throughout the silent hall.
A young couple, probably in their thirties, walked about 15 meters ahead of me, casually strolling through the room, looking left, then right, up, then down. Art from the last 500 years surrounded me. I did not know any of the artists who created these works, but I appreciated them—or tried to—nonetheless.
It made me think about all of the artists who were “good enough” to have their art hung in a museum half a millennium later, but who are, for the most part, forgotten. We do not line up to see their art like we do for Leonardo da Vinci or Van Gogh. We do not even stop to read the little description hanging next to their paintings. In essence, we see their masterpiece for one moment, pause for a few seconds, and then move onto the next one.
As I walked through the halls of Sforzesco Castle in Milan, I could not help but feel overwhelmed with the immense amount of art filling the massive passageways of the castle. There were paintings, frescos, instruments, wooden furniture, sculptures, decorations, glassworks, stones, ceramics, weaponry, and more, all of them seemingly more intricate than the next. I saw thousands of pieces, and only a few stand out in my mind.
At first, I thought—how sad. These artists obviously put a tremendous amount of effort towards their craft, and yet, nobody cares about their life’s work aside from the curator who decided to add their piece into the museum.
But then after some time, I thought—what a relief. What a relief it is to know that everything we do, for the most part, will be forgotten, or rather, will become meaningless. It will not be forgotten because there aren’t mechanisms in place to remember. Technology will solve that issue. But we will be forgotten because humanity simply has no need to remember everything that everyone does.
Remember that script you’ve been working on for 3 years that never seems to get finished? Or that one song that you can’t get the chorus quite right? Or that shed in your backyard that you were going to turn into a playhouse?
Well all of those things will, with enough time, become meaningless anyway. The pressure’s off. It doesn’t matter if it’s perfect or great or even good.
But—it could be meaningful for one person today.
Maybe your significant other loves the comedy you weave into your scripts. Or your grandmother loves the songs you write. Or your kids love the places you spend time with them. They don’t care whether your creation will make it into a museum 500 years from now because they won’t be here 500 years from now. They care about what you can make for them now.
As I pondered all of this during my time at Sforzesco Castle, I finished my trip by stopping to see the Pietà Rondanini by Michelangelo Buonarotti. It is an unfinished marble sculpture of The Virgin Mary holding Christ in her arms. Considering that it is incomplete, it is rather unexciting to see, especially if you’ve seen Michelangelo’s other masterpieces like the statue of David or the Pietà at St. Peter’s Basilica. But it was a reminder for me that the way we assign meaning to things is an arbitrary and random science.
Everyone at the Castle was willing to line up and see an unfinished work by Michelangelo, regardless of how unimpressive it is, because it is by Michelangelo. But I watched people walk right past hundreds of other remarkable paintings and sculptures at the museum because they didn’t know who the artist was.
In the end, this is human nature. We can’t care about everything. We can only care about things that have meaning. So find the people in your life that matter and make something meaningful for them.
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The squeaking soles of my sneakers echoed throughout the silent hall.
A young couple, probably in their thirties, walked about 15 meters ahead of me, casually strolling through the room, looking left, then right, up, then down. Art from the last 500 years surrounded me. I did not know any of the artists who created these works, but I appreciated them—or tried to—nonetheless.
It made me think about all of the artists who were “good enough” to have their art hung in a museum half a millennium later, but who are, for the most part, forgotten. We do not line up to see their art like we do for Leonardo da Vinci or Van Gogh. We do not even stop to read the little description hanging next to their paintings. In essence, we see their masterpiece for one moment, pause for a few seconds, and then move onto the next one.
As I walked through the halls of Sforzesco Castle in Milan, I could not help but feel overwhelmed with the immense amount of art filling the massive passageways of the castle. There were paintings, frescos, instruments, wooden furniture, sculptures, decorations, glassworks, stones, ceramics, weaponry, and more, all of them seemingly more intricate than the next. I saw thousands of pieces, and only a few stand out in my mind.
At first, I thought—how sad. These artists obviously put a tremendous amount of effort towards their craft, and yet, nobody cares about their life’s work aside from the curator who decided to add their piece into the museum.
But then after some time, I thought—what a relief. What a relief it is to know that everything we do, for the most part, will be forgotten, or rather, will become meaningless. It will not be forgotten because there aren’t mechanisms in place to remember. Technology will solve that issue. But we will be forgotten because humanity simply has no need to remember everything that everyone does.
Remember that script you’ve been working on for 3 years that never seems to get finished? Or that one song that you can’t get the chorus quite right? Or that shed in your backyard that you were going to turn into a playhouse?
Well all of those things will, with enough time, become meaningless anyway. The pressure’s off. It doesn’t matter if it’s perfect or great or even good.
But—it could be meaningful for one person today.
Maybe your significant other loves the comedy you weave into your scripts. Or your grandmother loves the songs you write. Or your kids love the places you spend time with them. They don’t care whether your creation will make it into a museum 500 years from now because they won’t be here 500 years from now. They care about what you can make for them now.
As I pondered all of this during my time at Sforzesco Castle, I finished my trip by stopping to see the Pietà Rondanini by Michelangelo Buonarotti. It is an unfinished marble sculpture of The Virgin Mary holding Christ in her arms. Considering that it is incomplete, it is rather unexciting to see, especially if you’ve seen Michelangelo’s other masterpieces like the statue of David or the Pietà at St. Peter’s Basilica. But it was a reminder for me that the way we assign meaning to things is an arbitrary and random science.
Everyone at the Castle was willing to line up and see an unfinished work by Michelangelo, regardless of how unimpressive it is, because it is by Michelangelo. But I watched people walk right past hundreds of other remarkable paintings and sculptures at the museum because they didn’t know who the artist was.
In the end, this is human nature. We can’t care about everything. We can only care about things that have meaning. So find the people in your life that matter and make something meaningful for them.
