Live like an artist

In the last few weeks of 2023, I geeked out over the Tony Award–winning lead actor of Dear Evan Hansen Ben Platt—the first queer artist who struck me as inspiring. During the two-week holiday break, I had “For Forever”, “Waving Through the Window”, and “Words Fail” playing on repeat on my devices. Ben hits the high notes effortlessly and his low notes highlight the rich quality of his timbre. I also listened to some of his pieces in Parade and watched his live performances: his vocals were impressive.

But that aside, he also writes good songs and gives smart answers during interviews. I learned that he is the son of Marc Platt who, himself, is a multi-award–winning producer—and by whom Ben Platt’s song “In Case You Don’t Live Forever” was inspired. What’s more is we’re of the same age—almost the same age, since he’s a year younger. Sometimes, reading up about artists like Ben Platt makes me wonder what I’ve been doing in my life.

I am drawn to artists, but particularly to those who have strong charisma and an artistic air about them. Any person who’s deeply immersed in his or her arts (and who are not chronically burned out, perhaps) tends to inspire passion, excellence, and hard work. ‘Fulfilled’ artists have these three.

Technically, I could call myself an artist. In fact, Pablo Picasso says every child (who is all of us) is an artist. But I look deep in me, and I see a chronically burned-out creative entrepreneur who’s struggling to make ends meet. Every morning, I wake up and stare at the affirmations and prayers written on my colorful bulletin board, hoping they would give me strength to survive the day. I realized that when you’re this tired, your sense of direction could get impaired, and you end up just going through the motions. It makes you wonder if you truly are doing something in your life or if you’re merely being a slave to your clients and the economy. Don’t get me wrong, there are times when it’s still fun. But I hope I could just focus on making good art and helping others make good art without having to worry about whether coins still jingle in my pocket or if I have enough to pay the staff and the bills.

After contemplating my situation, however, I realized the challenges are inevitable. I have to go through them—and to surpass them well—to possibly achieve a better life. In short, there’s no other way but to deal with the ebb and flow of the tides. And I shall do so while protecting my fire, my joy, and my faith.

Inspired by Ben Platt, I told myself that I’m going to live ‘artistically’ this year. And by ‘living artistically’, I do not mean engaging myself into more arts necessarily, but merely having the artistic mindset that everything is art, and thus everything is beautiful. I think the kind of artists I am drawn to have an artistic disposition because they think, do, and live art until they don’t need to do so deliberately. Such transcendence of the art could be a full proof that the person responds to what Pope John Paul II calls the ‘artistic vocation’. And with this vocation, artists should not just create beauty but preserve the beauty—the divine spark from God—that’s already inside them.

Everything is art.

Everything is beautiful.