Outsider. Between reality and illusion..

Art is a creative effort to capture reality and to find its meaning through the illusions of literature, visual arts, and music. Art, as any other illusion, provides consolation for the boredom and adversities of life. It is an effort to both create and escape reality. The paradox is that art distorts reality in order to reveal its essence. The distortion of life by art may cause confusion, as one tends to compare one's existence with those in the fictional settings of books or films. If one does not recognize them as illusions, one may become dissatisfied with life. The illusory drama will always remain fiction, unlike the unscripted life governed by chance.

Literature, visual arts, and music are symbolic representations of reality, like imagination and thought. However, there is a tendency to confuse those mental realities with physical realities and treat them as if they were real. Thus, a great deal of human effort is directed at dealing with the tension between