“It’s not the answer that enlightens, but the question.” – Eugene Ionesco
Yesterday, we introduced the idea of:
“Living your life as a work of art.”
An idea that, on the surface, sounds so cliché I nearly tossed it as soon as I heard it.
(I think the term I used was “new-age nonsense”)
But thankfully, it stuck with me.
Years went by, and deeper layers of meaning took shape.
And today, nearly ten years after the idea first entered my mind, we’re going to begin to decode that deeper meaning.
Let’s start at the beginning, with the question that unlocks the answer:
What is art?
We don’t need to get too fancy with this one…
Art takes a wide range of forms — from linguistic to visual to physical to abstract and beyond.
So we need a simple, catch-all definition that will include all art forms (and all levels of quality).
Maybe something like:
Art is a creative act.
Yes, that’ll work.
Art is a creative act — so “living your life as a work of art” means your life is a creative act, and you are creating your life with every thought, word, and action.
In the end, the sum total of your thoughts, words, and actions form your work of art:
The masterpiece — or, the incomplete vision — of your life.
Simple enough, so let’s take it a half-step further:
To a master artist, every word on the page, every brushstroke, every note deeply matters…
Because the master artist knows that his art is the direct expression of who he is; his unique fingerprint on reality.
And the aim of his work — of his life — is to express his art in it’s most beautiful, most original, most meaningful form.
So that gives us the first layer of our answer to the question:
“What does it mean to live your life as a work of art?”
To live your life as a work of art means to step fully into your role as the creator, the master artist, of your life…
To toss back the color-inside-the-lines template society offers us, and step into our unique creative power as human beings.
Level one, complete.
Level two, tomorrow…
- T
P.S. To get a jumpstart on tomorrow’s discussion, ask yourself…
“What makes great art?”
In other words, what are the fundamental features that every great work of art has in common?
Hit reply if you have any initial thoughts.
And if you’d like to read (or re-read) Part 1, click here.
(the blog and website are a work in progress, but the content is all there)