Should Exposure to and the Capacity to Create Art Lead to Living a Better Life?

This year has been a particularly conflicted one, with amazing high highs and saddening low lows. This is the time of year when people take stock of their years, take stock of their lives. They come up with a year-end report and make projections for what their life will be to come. I am in that kind of frame of mind, but I've found myself wrestling with certain ideas and questions and I guess rather than run over what I think I've been through in the year, I want to sort of think and ramble (...