Proust on Art

If you get a chance, I highly recommend picking up Alain de Botton's book, How Proust Can Change Your Life. You needn't even be a fan of the French novelist who is perhaps best known for In Search of Time. 

What Botton does so brilliantly is skillfully interpret what Proust was trying to get at when he spoke of art, literature, and friendship -- and not solely by what he wrote but by how he lived.

I especially enjoyed how Botton describes Proust's views on art and creativity and how the goal of art is not to merely distract us from our day-to-day lives but affect us in some small way. 

Or Proust's belief of what constitutes great works of art:

"Hence Proust's assertion that the greatness of works of art has nothing to do with the apparent quality of their subject matter, and everything to do with the subsequent treatment of that matter."

But what spoke to me most was the importance and key to true expression. 

Creativity is about freeing ourselves from the traditional and limited ways of interpreting the world -- to boldly share our perception of humanity the way we see it, however flawed.