Awaken the Artist Within

Being an artist means being unique.

Being an artist means feeling alive.

An artist is someone who creates something unique in their own special way. It could be a painting, a song, a sculpture, a delicious cake, a snowman, or myriad of other things.

While some artists, like Pablo Picasso in painting, Miley Cyrus in singing, or Jamie Olivier in cooking, gain fame and recognition for their work, we shouldn’t focus on such goals as our main motivation for becoming artists. There are at least two good reasons for that:

• Firstly, doubting our artistic abilities can hinder us from even trying to express ourselves creatively. If we worry we won’t be as good as the famous artists, we might never start.
• Secondly, when we chase recognition, fame, or wealth through our art, it can spoil the purity of our creativity. We might twist our art into something that’s more about gaining fame or fortune rather than expressing ourselves authentically.

Therefore, real art feels like skiing on the virgin snow or stepping into the forrest in complete darkness, somewhere where no one else has been before.

“You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path. Where there is a way or path, it is someone else’s path.“— J.Campbell

As unique human beings, it is our duty to break free from the societal, corporate, religious, or any other script imposed upon us, and instead, write our own script anew, in our own unique way. This is what artisanship is all about.

There can be no complete fulfilment without expressing our inherent talents, every day. Those of us who fail to do so, live second-hand lives.

“If you deliberately plan to be less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you’ll be deeply unhappy for the rest of your life. You will be evading your own capacities, your own possibilities.” — A.Maslow

I’ve felt this in my own life, especially in my career. Despite having a comfortable job with good pay and low stress, I felt unfulfilled because my true talents remain dormant, buried under mundane and repetitive tasks.

Sometimes, we don’t realise that our unhappiness stems from neglecting our talents. But if we pay attention to what our body is saying, we’ll sense that something isn’t right, even if we can’t put our finger on it.

The way out of this is to become artists in our daily lives, to awaken and use our talents as much as we can. We have to look for the moments when our souls are singing, when the spark turns on, and we find ourselves in rapture. It’s hard to resist the joy that emanates from artistic expression.

However, It’s not an easy journey, and it takes courage. For some, the safety of their current situation might seem more important than fully expressing themselves.

The only question is how are we going to rationalise that to ourselves later on in our lives?

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