P A N

in a way i kind of agree with the OP. i often find myself comparing the artists of today with those of the days when timeless art was kind of par for course, and what i see lacking in a lot of artists today is the dedication and madness. that level of obsession with artistic production which - from what i can tell - comes not only from practicing the craft incessantly but also a great deal of thinking about life intensely. i kinda feel like artists today are distracted on a general level, and we'll never see the genius of another beethoven ever again.

i don't mean to sound like a snob or demean the validity of artists' work today, but to me it's really a matter of comparing masters to children. perhaps the dynamic of writer/performer exists so easily because most people are okay with being children and just indulging in the will to create. a lot of masters were also egoists (competitive) as well, which it seems the current paradigm of thinkers is trying to overcome... which may or may not be a good thing. that's a different discussion altogether, but perhaps worth considering.