The German philosopher Martin Heidegger published a 1947 essay called “The Origin of the Work of Art” in which he grappled with defining art as a category. To give a sense of how hard that is to do, Heidegger worked on the essay from 1935 until 1960, and only stopped because he died. The definition that I would borrow from Heidegger’s essay is this:

A work of art is something new in the world that changes the world to allow itself to exist.

What that means is that if you’re at point A, you’re not going to point B. You’re instantiating point B. Focusing on solutions finds the best outcome in the Point A world. Focusing on questions creates a new world, in a large or small way.

¶ 5:23 PM