In our last episode, I considered how artists of all sorts—writers, musicians, performers, visual artists—need to be making plans for the anticipated withdrawal of support for culture already announced by the incoming US administration.

But perhaps it’s best to start by taking a step back and asking why it will be such a profound loss. Why do the arts matter?

My first response is this: Art isn’t just a creative endeavor. It’s not just pretty, or entertaining, or interesting, though it can be all of those things. But at a deeper level, it changes people. It shapes our perceptions and understandings of ourselves, each other, and the world around us. It both reflects society—and influences it.

We see, or hear, or read something and immediately try to fit it into our current frames of reference. Is that a novel like this other one I read? How do I feel about that discordant bit in that song? Is that bit of twisted metal truly artistic? We start thinking. Things that challenge us, force us to consider what they mean, and whether we can make room for them in our current life-perception.

You can’t buy that. It’s not a commodity.

The arts offer so much that can’t be quantified. They offer, sometimes, an escape from reality, a chance to step into a different world with different rules, the opportunity to escape, albeit temporarily, our troubles.

They give us vehicles for self-expression: a place to share thoughts, or feelings, or even whole identities. They take us deep below the surface, inviting us to contemplate mysteries—the meaning of life, the purpose of being, the joys and despairs of the human condition.

And—there’s nothing wrong with this—they provide entertainment. They make us smile, connect, feel joy.

In ancient Greece, art and music were deemed the only channels to communicate with the gods. I think they were on to something. Music, theatre, literature, sculpture, opera, paintings… all these and more connect us with something transcendent. No matter what our religion, or lack thereof, most of us agree there is something more, something deeper, something unspoken and mysterious and vital to our lives, and we access that transcendence through the arts.

We learn, we grow, we change, we evolve through these bits of magic, these shimmering ideas that challenge us, comfort us, and show us a path forward.

I don’t want to lose that.

Do you?