Exhale #29: Living life as an artist
On the phone recently with one of my favorite artists, Hans Walor, I asked him what he was most passionate about right now. After thinking for a moment he said, “Treating life as art.”
He said, “You know that quote ‘how you do anything is how you do everything?’
I’ve been asking myself ‘What if I put the same level of attention and care into how I make my bed or my tea that I do into my paintings? When I think that way, the lines of my life and my work really blur and become one.”
In an equally poetic fashion I responded, “Fuck. I love that.”
It made me think…
What if every moment was an opportunity to create art
If mundane moments could become just as important as all the other ones.
What if I stopped trying to rush through things to get to the things that I “really want to do?”
Every day a blank canvas
Every moment a new brushstroke
Every conversation
Every wash of the dishes
Every car ride
Every time I wait in line
Every time I go to the bathroom
Every meal
Every time I send a “boring email”
Every Zoom meeting
THAT is how I want to feel in and move through my life.
My friend, Mansal Denton, is another artist. Not as a painter or musician but a life artist.
His business, Sacred Hunting, is really taking off right now.
Almost every single person I know, maybe every single one actually, would take the momentum he’s experiencing and try to go even faster and bigger. Try to really capitalize on the opportunity.
Instead, I’ve observed Mansal intentionally slowing down even further.
What is most important to him is HOW he is living his life.
He takes slow walks and goes to the local watering hole, Barton Springs, daily to enjoy the outdoors.
He writes and does creative work every morning.
He spends hours in conversation with those closest to him.
He cooks all of his own food almost exclusively from animals that he’s killed.
He humbly receives ass whoopings from me in Spikeball.
He treats his two cats like they are his own children.
Mansal understands and lives by a principle that most will never even touch.
Life is right now, it’s not in the future.
There’s no sense of urgency in his movements, because he is exactly in the right place already.
Mansal is literally one of the biggest thinkers I’ve ever met, but he believes that what’s most important is that he stay connected to himself and life along the way to making his visions a reality.
I’ve always been a “Type A” person.
I’ve learned to create goals and work aggressively towards them. I’ve learned to optimize just about every part of my life at different times.
This type of thinking and set of skills has served me in a lot of ways, and I wouldn’t be where I am today without it.
However, in the past few years I’ve been waking up to how this mentality hinders me when unchecked.
How it causes me to rush through life towards the future, forgetting the present.
Over and over and over and over again. Telling myself unconsciously that when x happens then I’ll be happier. Then I’ll be relaxed. Then I’ll feel free.
In his book, Skin in the Game, Nassim Taleb says that
“Anything you do to optimize your work, cut some corners, or squeeze more “efficiency” out of it (and out of your life) will eventually make you dislike it.”
Living to optimize efficiency is to live like a machine.
Living life as an artist is to live like a human.
It’s more colorful, creative, fun and has more depth.
Living artistically doesn’t mean I have to abandon the old mentality and skillset of making things efficient. I can pull out those tools any time I need.
Treating life like art to me means slowing down to appreciate everything.
It means noticing the opportunity to elevate every interaction with presence and curiosity.
It means allowing myself to play, create, and experiment in every area of life.
It means doing things just for the sake of enjoyment.
It means choosing to be happy, relaxed and free today and behaving in a way that makes that possible right now.