Art and Life

Does art imitate life, or life imitate art?  This question has been the subject of centuries of debate, and is nowhere near resolved.  Probably, in the long run, it is a "both..and" issue.

Today's comics in the Courier Mail got me thinking about this.  Nothing like a daily dose of the comics to stir the brain cells one way or another.

Oh how I can relate to Fred Basset.  Many a mid-morning I would give anything to hit the couch for an hour.  It takes real will power to hold off until after lunch for the daily nap.  Just one example of art reflecting the real-life experience of getting older.

Hagar the Horrible is not a character one would expect to look to as mirroring one's own situation.  But in today's panel he humorously exposes the all too frequent desperation one can experience when an ageing bladder threatens to give out.

I'm not much of a Garfield fan, but today's simple clip expresses beautifully the warmth of friendship that becomes so much more important as age robs us of so many old colleagues and friends.  Attendance at funerals becomes almost one's central social life! How welcome time spent over a beer or cuppa with friends.

Calvin has such a rich imaginative life that gets him into all sorts of strife.  Today he's driven to desperation when Hobbes won't stay on focus and help him solve the mess he's got himself into with his transmogrifier!  Certainly I too could do with a lot more help in thinking these days.  I get frequent "asides" of thought I mean to follow up: a question to ask, a piece of news to share, a reference to google...   But sadly they disappear into the ether long before the present focus of attention ends.  And I end up as frustrated as Calvin appears here.

Now, why did I start this post?  I am certain I had some deep insight in mind to share -- but sadly it is gone.  Maybe it will come back to me as I lie awake some morning at 2.30 am deciding if I really must stagger out to the toilet.  

RAKE

I have been enjoying wading through the four very successful seasons of the ABC crime drama RAKE on Netflix. 

It centres on the deeply flawed character of a brilliant Sydney barrister, Cleaver Greene, an alcoholic, sexaholic, drug addicted womaniser and compulsive gambler.  His marriage has ended, though he finds it hard to admit it.  He tries desperately to be a good father to his teenage son whom he genuinely loves -- but just doesn't have the ability to do so.

What is clear in episode after episode is just what a mix of the good and bad can coexist in a person.  Cleaver is passionately committed to the law, to the pursuit of justice particularly for those who are being given the rough end of the stick by the system.  He'll go to any ends, however dodgy, to achieve that.  And all the while his personal life staggers from one crisis to another.  He knows how to give, but not how to accept the help he needs from those who love him. 

Cleaver is both a blessing and a curse to those around him.

RAKE is a parable.  It is told in bold strokes, its characters painted bigger than life to make a point.  Just as the Lord's parables of the Prodigal Son, the Lost Sheep and the Unfaithful Servant were similarly exaggerated lest we miss the point.

We should never write anyone off.  However much of the bad we see, it may well be hiding from us the redeeming grace of the good struggling to be set free.  Who knows but what a helping hand rather than a condemning word might achieve?  RAKE reminds me powerfully that God never gives up on any one of us, however flawed!