It is hard from within our present condition to even imagine a world […] which kindness and empathy are considered talents as worthy of cultivation as computer coding or making money, and one in which the point of cultivating any talent is to enrich your life and that of others, rather than gain fame, wealth, and power.
Avram Alpert, The Good Enough Life (2022)
The term good enough has been a touchstone for a long time, so I was glad to discover Avran Alpert’s book, The Good-Enough Life. His ideas fit hand-in-glove with those of A Selfless Art and bring a philosophical understanding I don’t have. Conversations with writers, like the conversations I’ve been having this weekend with an old friend, are an essential part of how my ideas develop. Responding to Ralph’s challenges yesterday, I saw that my book is consciously idealistic. In the past I have written with a practical intent, offering conceptual tools to people who make community art. This time, whatever I can offer will be a vision of how things could be. Probably, my ideas about co-creation couldn’t be implemented in the world as it is, though trying to enact them might be one of the ways in which we change this world. There is already work that would fit my idea of a selfless art: the problem is that it exists in a selfish (art) world. Alpert has a simple but radical vision of how we could live, and it’s one I share, and am trying to articulate in this book.
Being good to each other and providing enough for each other; not asking too much of each other and not taking too much for ourselves: We do not need more than this for humanity to flourish.’
Avram Alpert
François Matarasso 