“Artist is not a vocation. It is a vibration.” — Jess Magic
Music, painting, writing, dancing, or any other artistic activity, belong to the same vibrational frequency. They are ways of self expression. Every single one of us holds truth inside and we are unaware of its existence. The truth can only be spilled when you deviate from habitual thinking patterns and let your inner voice out naturally, through a pen, a brush, or an instrument.
I’ve always thought that being an artist was an overstatement. I am not Picasso or Van Gogh. I am an amateur who loves painting, sketching, writing, and playing music. People call that “jack of all trades, master of none”. I’m not sure who invented that idiom but whoever did knows nothing about Jack. Jack never wants to be a “Master”. He just loves doing all of his trades.
I am Jack and my trades are part of me that go beyond just “hobbies” yet never intended to reach “mastery”. I’m not a big fan of the word “hobby”. When you categorize something as “a hobby”, you turn a true desire into something frivolous, unimportant, and non-essential to your life. “It’s just a hobby.” That’s the excuse people use to not pursue something long term or finish what they have started.
What if it’s more than just a hobby? What if you were born to do something different than everyone else and you are afraid to own that talent? What if your “hobby” is who you meant to become but you refuse to believe because of social preoccupation and judgements? What if you are not confident about yourself and always think that you are not good enough, so you reduce your talent into “a hobby”?
We let our ego drive our decisions and behaviors for so long that we lose trust in our capabilities. Ego diminishes my soul into something mediocre and small. People keep telling me pieces of truth that I’ve been denying for years:
“Fan, you are really talented.”
“Fan, you are an artist.”
“Fan, I love your sketches. Keep doing what you do!”
“Fan, you can become a yoga teacher and show all your talents to the world.”
…
“Nah, they are just my hobbies for fun.” The old me responded.
Bullshit story. I know they are more than” just a hobby”. They are my therapy that saved me from depression and healed my broken heart. They are essential parts of my life that define who I am as a person and what I would like to bring into this world.
The process of creating is very therapeutic. I was lost in the transience of time. I felt light. The kind of lightness that does not belong to the earthly world. My body was a vessel and it moved on its own. The moment I cast my gaze on the canvas and an object, my hands started working automatically. They know what to do. At the beginning, I was not good but I did not stop. I kept tapping my paint brush, brushing off my perfectionist self and adding strength to my creativity. I spilled my brush cup with water and dropped my color palette with a mess on the floor. I don’t care. I was on task to finish something. Something I knew my heart desired to reach where the weight of my body was lifted together with the heaviness of the mundane matters.
I am an artist, so are you. We all desire to create and bring something meaningful to this world. However, years of fear, trauma, and anxiety kept blocking us from creating. They built a wall of defense to true happiness. Healing ourselves means dismantling past patterns and exposing ourselves to the Unknown. Uncomfortable as it is, we need to rebuild ourselves constantly to grow and develop our potential to its fullest. I never thought that I would pick up sketching, writing, the piano, and painting during my healing journey in 2020. I intended to heal a broken heart while accidentally activating more sides of me that were lost for a long time. This activation was so powerful that things were never the same since then.
I am not who I used to be. I’ve rebuilt myself to this artist Jack, who does all of his trades to create peace, balance, and love in this world. Here is the truth about Jack:
Jack is not a master of his trades, he is a master of himself.