What is Art?

Lately, I have been thinking that, while good art often uncovers what is hidden, allowing us to see lucidly across large spans of time and space, the short-form clips of our age seem to instead obscure our sight.

Take, for instance, the "tradwife" trend on TikTok and Instagram. There is perhaps no more powerful antidote to the digital mirage of seemingly young, healthy, and manicured women endlessly showing off pampered babies and sponsored cleaning products, than the short story collection I recently finished reading. In Banu Mushtaq's Heart Lamp, a young housewife cries out to her husband (and to us all): "Others are not even married at my age. But I am already an old woman [...] My back is broken. These children, the home, samsara—do I have even a minute of free time? If I bear one child per year, what will I become? Don't you want me to live long enough to be a mother to these children at least?"

- Andrea