24/7 (Staying In It)

The essence of an artist’s work tran­scends con­ven­tion­al notions of labor, where the divide between per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al life blurs into non-exis­tence. It’s a relent­less pur­suit char­ac­ter­ized not just by what one does but pri­mar­i­ly by what one is. Cre­ativ­i­ty, in this light, insin­u­ates itself into every aspect of being, mak­ing the artist peren­ni­al­ly “on call.” This dual nature of artis­tic endeavor—encompassing both the act of cre­ation and the exis­ten­tial state of being creative—mandates more than just engage­ment with one’s craft; it requires an insa­tiable dri­ve and a some­what unre­al­is­tic stan­dard of com­mit­ment. The dichoto­my of work and life that many pro­fes­sions nav­i­gate is eschewed in favor of a seam­less inte­gra­tion, where bal­ance becomes a cher­ished yet sel­dom achieved ide­al.

The com­mit­ment to a cre­ative life entails a per­pet­u­al open­ness to the world. An artist’s vig­i­lance to the envi­ron­ment, the minu­ti­ae of dai­ly life, and the seem­ing­ly incon­se­quen­tial moments becomes the bedrock for future inspi­ra­tion. This state of con­stant alertness—to lis­ten, observe, and discern—enables one to draw upon the vast reser­voirs of human expe­ri­ence. Each obser­va­tion, thought, or epiphany, no mat­ter how fleet­ing, is grist to the cre­ative mill, poten­tial­ly serv­ing as the foun­da­tion for the next mas­ter­piece. It’s a mode of exis­tence that brooks no ces­sa­tion, where every inci­dent or inter­ac­tion could har­bor the seeds of cre­ative gold.

Thus, the life of an artist is a tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of sus­tained atten­tion and pres­ence. Just as a surfer can­not dic­tate the sea’s caprices, an artist nav­i­gates the unpre­dictable cur­rents of cre­ativ­i­ty, reliant on a keen sen­si­tiv­i­ty to the envi­ron­ment. This state of per­pet­u­al engage­ment denotes not just a pro­fes­sion­al neces­si­ty but a pro­found engage­ment with the world, where stay­ing recep­tive becomes as much a part of the cre­ative process as the actu­al act of cre­ation. The task then is not sim­ply to work but to live in a man­ner that per­pet­u­ates the cycle of inspi­ra­tion and out­put, mak­ing every moment a poten­tial source of bril­liance.