Nice to meet you, I'm an artist

 I’ve always struggled with calling myself an artist. I associate artists with those who can display and package their art aesthetically. Art that is widely recognized. And widely appreciated. Art that can be displayed, or sung, or drawn, or seen. Art that is consumed or followed. Something that is to be indulged in every waking moment.

How can we really define art and categorize an artist? Is an artist a personality or an attitude? Is it someone who pursues it every moment of their existence or someone who's naturally gifted with it but accesses it infrequently?

But isn’t life art? The beauty of seasons, the transience of emotions, the realness of aging, the hues of the sky, the background music of cities, the effervescence of time, the vastness of love. The world is a whole amalgamation of art.

And by default, doesn’t that make us all artists? The way we talk, the way we walk, how we communicate without words, how we express through touch, how we design our lives, the uniqueness of our handwriting, and how we do the make up on our face. How we dress ourselves, how we make others smile and laugh. The angles that we click pictures in and the cacophonous way in which we sing our favorite songs. I think we all carry art within ourselves in our small and unique ways. We exist and we are art.

I’m taking the first step today by calling myself an artist. Not the one with apolitical opinions, aestheticism, messy hair, strong ideologies and a tote bag that flashes in your mind. I’m an artist. Not because I write or read or click pictures. I’m an artist because life leaves us no option but to be.