The arts as tools

I guess it shows just how pedantic I am, that I would enjoy defining what must already be so obvious: I enjoy writing as a tool for problem solving. If I write something, somehow I explore, exhaust, and conclude it...Unless, of course, my writing helps me discover something new, in which case I have to repeat the process. Well, I guess what fascinates me is how different arts serve different purposes for me. So writing is my problem-solving tool. But music exists on an entirely different plane. Music is how I tap into my subconscious mind and my spirituality. (Are those two the same thing? I'm not sure.) Proust referred to music as the purist, highest form of art. For me personally, that is true. Music is a spiritual experience. Better than church. (I was just listening to Naughty by Nature's O.P.P. Not know what the lyrics meant ;) I had that good ol' holiness feeling.) My response to the visual arts is different. Art--painting and sculpture--expands my imagination so that I can think of new people and environments. Art exists somewhere between writing and music on the intellectual/spiritual dichotomy...If in fact the two are so diametrically opposed. (I'm not sure that they are.) Once again, I'm right in line with Proust, haha. He did believed in the intellectual/spiritual dichotomy and ranked the arts in terms of spirituality (from lowest to highest): writing, art, music.