Why Art?

Lately I have been giving increasing thought to what I want to do with my future. I have had mostly vague and somewhat scary thoughts. The options seem almost endless and this scares me. No, scare is the wrong word. This is the fact that makes any decision much more difficult. I don't even know what my options are.
In the end I have always wanted to do something not only that I enjoy but that also brings something to the world. This may seem like a tall order but this is why I wanted to be a teacher for quite a while. I think teachers are incredibly important and certainly help to shape the world into what it is. My aspirations of becoming a teacher have now been laid to rest and have yet to be replaced.
Despite the lamentations (or perhaps I can label them: rants) of a certain Mike about the state of animation today, I believe I still want to work with animation. I don’t know in what capacity, but that decision can come with time. The only thing now is to reconcile my want to do something of (for a lack of a better way to articulate myself) consequence and my want to work with animation. For some this may seem like an easy task, and I will get that in a minute, but you have to understand that while I greatly appreciate and enjoy everything I learn at the archive, I have not exactly been led to be hopeful about the current production of animation. It is also difficult for me to say that some of my pursuits really bring anything to the table as far as helping humanity goes. I still can’t figure out how building my campus in 3D fits in, or how sitting in front of my computer coding fits in. I suppose it depends on what I code. . . but my point or concern still stands.
Happily after an interesting conversation with my friend Tim, with whom I shared my concern that what I study is not really pointing me in the direction I had once envisioned (I may have phrased that differently), he said something I considered very interesting: “I think that by the act of creating art the artist is defining humanity, and in some sense it is a real responsibility to define it in a good direction.”
Thank you, Tim. I feel much better about my choice to go into making art. Even if what I end up creating does nothing quite so profound as to define humanity, I believe I will have done something if I can only make one person smile or think a little.
(A quick note: the Mike I mention is in no way discouraging about going into animation, I just want to make that clear, mostly for his sake)