Redtree Times

Daytripper– At West End Gallery

The best kept secret in America today is that people would rather work hard for something they believe in than live a life of aimless diversion.

–John W. Gardner, Living, Leading, and the American Dream, 2003

This is another new Little Gem that is now at the West End Gallery for their annual exhibit of small works. This piece really hit me in a visceral way when it was done. It exuded a lot of different things that all hit the mark for me. The color was right on with its mood, tone, and temperature harmonizing perfectly. The shapes and forms felt right in relation to each another and the small figure in the foreground added great depth to the scene.

There was a lot packed into this very small painting. Yet, I struggled with what it was saying to me. The wildfires in LA were burning at the time and I thought that with its extra warm coloration it might be saying something about fleeing the heat and flames.

But that didn’t feel right. The nature of the tiny figure was a nagging question for me. Was it fleeing the city’s hustle and bustle? Or was it returning from the city to its home in a cooler, calmer remote place? I couldn’t answer that definitively, but I loved the ambiguity. It didn’t really matter whether the figure was  seeking diversion in the heat of the city or in the cool of the country. The point I saw was that it was seeking something different, if only to provide a contrast to what it experienced every other day.

The daytripper, of course. 

I looked for a short quote or passage that somewhat summed up what I was seeing here and came across this short passage from a posthumously published book the late John W. Gardner (1912-2002) who had served as the U.S. Secretary of Heath, Education, and Welfare under LBJ. I wasn’t sure it spoke directly to this painting, but it spoke to something that had been on my mind, something that seemed to manifest itself in recent times.

It was this idea that we have become a country that leans into constant diversion, that we seek easy, instant, and short-lived gratification in lieu of working or sacrificing for something that would more deeply satisfy our needs and desires. Something that would benefit us in a lasting manner. It’s a tendency that has been exploited by the powerful and influential for their own benefit

It is a hard offer to resist. We all want things to come easy., with little thought or effort. on pour part. And after being exposed to easy diversion for so long, we expect and demand it. We no longer value the day trip– we expect it each and every day.

It’s all an illusion. And a dangerous one at that. We have lost that muscle memory of the need for work and sacrifice for something greater, something more lasting.  We have exchanged that ability for shiny trinkets. 

I know that sounds much like the rants of an old codger at the local diner crowing about how things were so much better back in the day. To be honest, it wasn’t any better. We still wanted everything to be easy and thoughtless. That desire just wasn’t being as fully exploited as it is now. 

I’m going to stop now because I can’t fully link that thought to the painting outside of saying that we need diversion and the occasional day trip. But it should remain that– a day trip. Not a life filled with diversion that keeps us from attending to the real needs of ourselves and others. We need to pay attention, to look away from the shiny and easy a little more often. 

Divert ourselves not with the meaningless, but with things that feel our souls. 

And I think John W. Gardner was correct in believing that most people today would be willing to shuck constant diversion in order to have something worth working or fighting for. 

Maybe that tiny figure is turning its back on the diversions presented to it in order to seek its purpose? Or maybe the painting itself is a diversion?

I don’t know.

But like I wrote earlier, this little painting has a lot of things packed into it. 

Here’s the song that gave the title to this little guy, Daytripper. I am sharing both the Beatles’ original along with a wonderful version from fingerpicking wiz Tommy Emmanuelle that also includes Lady Madonna from the Beatles. If you like watching a master guitarist play, this is a must see.

A little diversion, yes, but it feeds the soul. Or so I think.