Nick Cave Fear and Hope

https://www.theredhandfiles.com/fills-me-with-both-fear-and-hope/

He told me that, yes, these terrible things happen but he also set about showing me stuff he thought was beautiful – reading me things mostly, and encouraging me to follow an artistic direction in my life. It was a simple but effective action, a redressing of the balance of the bad and the good, and life changing, in its way.

So, I have always seen it as a kind of parental duty to show my own children beautiful stuff, and in doing so reveal to them an alternate world. By beautiful, I mean interesting, inspiring, ambiguous, challenging and sometimes dangerous things that exist within the world of art. I feel that the online world provides us ready access to a vast and ever-deepening barrage of bad shit, where the cruel reality of the world is well covered. This continual onslaught of negativity can erode our souls and the souls of our children. My job is to show my children that there is a whole universe that exists beyond the grim issues of the day. This is not to divert them from certain truths, but rather to remind them that the parallel world of art and the imagination can literally save their lives, as it certainly saved mine.
-Nick Cave The Red Hand Files