“The sheep had taught him something even more important: that there was a language in the world that everyone understood, a language the boy had used throughout the time he was trying to improve things at the shop. It was the language of enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose, and as part of a search for something believed in and desired” 

When I read these couple of sentences in The Alchemist, the words resonated with me.  With something I’d been trying hard to define for some time in my own mind - the difference between the kind of life I wanted to live and the one I’d spent 29 years living.

“… Things accomplished with love and purpose, and as part of a search for something believed in and desired.” 

These “things,” I call them art. 

The people who “accomplish” these “things,” I call them artists. 

In my experience, this sentence paints a clear and simple picture of the artistic life. One limited only by the artist’s creativity with her direction and talents.

… . 

My writing is most often geared toward painters, sculptors, designers, crafters, musicians, creators, film makers, writers … What you would call artisans. My offerings present practical, actionable advice about how to build a life on these types of artistic endeavors. 

But if I define the artistic life as one expressly aimed at accomplishing things with love and purpose, and as part of a search for something believed in and desired, then it is not only these artisans I am writing for. 

It’s my new friend, Jonathan Stalls, of Walk2Connect who accomplished a walk across the country in 8 months with the express purpose of finding and forming meaningful connections along the way. 

It’s Andrew Michael Todd, who knew there was more to life than the empty job he had been working in order to simply accumulate the things and events most people define as a life.

It’s Sean Ogle of Location 180, who decided to live an unconventional lifestyle in pursuit of the freedom to create all that he knew he was capable of and to teach others how to do the same. 

I suppose, when it comes down to it, the proper one word description of this kind of a life is … Passionate. 

The difference between an artist and a non-artist, in my experience, is passion.

And the fight to keep the passion alive, that is the lifeblood of every artistic being.

… .