What it means to be Artistic
The screw on my chair has come off. It's been two weeks since then. And I still am yet to replace it.
The mirrors on my scooter have become unruly, listening to the wind and just rotating non-stop as I drive through the city. It's been a week and I'm still yet to face it.
But instead, these two have got me thinking about something totally different.
I've always heard this from the mouth of anyone who's successful.
'{____ skill} is not a {insert relevant adjective}, it's an art.'
That's always been a passing statement. Something we always tend to use at the start of the speech to establish our supremacy over the pleb listeners.
But, this though has been bothering me. What does it really mean?
As I navigate through work, I can't help coming to this question again and again.
In the midst of making my bed, trying to hire employees, clean my toilet, raise funds or pitch to customers, it's a question that goes unanswered.
What does it mean to view it as art.
I remember writing earlier that all of us view the world with lenses. Maybe viewing art is yet another lens. A lens that makes you re-examine the relationship with your work.
An artist of repair would find the unscrewed chair and the loose rear-view mirror worrying. It'd eat his head. While developing my personal website I was bothered with the dimensions of the bento cards that I was using for it. I was worried about any animation I inserted and how it was supposed to behave.
I expressed a momentary act of artistry while making my website, immersed in the act of creation while focusing on the minutiae that nobody would.
As an artist with words, how I express vs how I'm supposed to. What words do I use while orating and how good I listen are of paramount importance. And maybe that's what it means to be an artist.
To pay attention to stuff that people never look at. All of us are momentarily artistic, and maybe to be a great requires you to translate this behaviour to anything you do.