Understanding intention regardless of medium

This may seem silly, and this isn't even that complex to really wrap your head around, but I would just like to emphasize that something as seemingly profound as this paragraph from the beginning of Book VIII of The Iliad:

"Now when Morning, clad in her robe of saffron, had begun to suffuse light over the earth, Jove called the gods in council on the topmost crest of serrated Olympus. Then he spoke and all the other gods gave ear. "Hear me," said he, "gods and goddesses, that I may speak even as I am minded. Let none of you neither goddess nor god try to cross me, but obey me every one of you that I may bring this matter to an end. If I see anyone acting apart and helping either Trojans or Danaans, he shall be beaten inordinately ere he come back again to Olympus; or I will hurl him down into dark Tartarus far into the deepest pit under the earth, where the gates are iron and the floor bronze, as far beneath Hades as heaven is high above the earth, that you may learn how much the mightiest I am among you. Try me and find out for yourselves. Hangs me a golden chain from heaven, and lay hold of it all of you, gods and goddesses together- tug as you will, you will not drag Jove the supreme counsellor from heaven to earth; but were I to pull at it myself I should draw you up with earth and sea into the bargain, then would I bind the chain about some pinnacle of Olympus and leave you all dangling in the mid firmament. So far am I above all others either of gods or men."

is EXACTLY on the same level / is the same as:



Nothing is so intelligent that it cannot be simplified to basic vibes and emotions, and that massive paragraph is basically Zeus/Jove saying "Listen, motherfuckers, you fuck with me and that's it." You might think that in this point of the story, people have betrayed him, so maybe this speech is to reaffirm his powerful position, but not really. His wife was nagging him a bit, but nothing more. The Gods in The Illiad are very petty about things, but that's getting off topic.

My point is simple, and it's just something that I think makes things that seem very profound and perhaps hard to understand much, much simpler. The most arty shit you can witness is no deeper than an episode of Barney The Dinosaur at it's core. Everything's on the same level, it's just that sometimes things can be expressed more intricately, but at the same time I think a lot of art and culture tend to hide behind complexity for the sake complexity. Vagueness and abstraction just to hide the fact that what is being conveyed is simply something as common as jealousy or even just basic joy.

Next time you see something 'arty' or 'complex' or whathaveyou, try not to put it up on a pedestal but instead knock it down, and really get down to the basics of what it's saying. By realizing what that initial paragraph is about, not like it's too hard to figure out, but by doing so it actually makes you appreciate it MORE than otherwise.

This has been a random summer thought