He rushed out of the house and slammed the door behind him, behind the person who no longer finds beauty, happiness or emotion, behind the heart that only functions to pump blood and nothing else, nothing to awaken the artist inside him.
He wished to be normal, to live life as a human who only admires beauty without having to create it. And sometimes he did, sometimes he looked at the ocean and the sun and the sky and the tree with awe and it was at these moments where he felt mostly human and sane. But he had a fear of sanity, and he had a fear of not being able to reveal beauty, to show emotion and to show love in everything he sees and feels. It wrecked his heart to think that the could live a life without expression, and it wrecked him even deeper when he realized that this was the life everyone around him was enduring.
But what is an artist? And what is a human? He asked himself, yearning to know the answers for both.
“I hope you are doing well, Jo,” said the old man approaching him.
They both sat on the bench facing a garden full of trees and flowers and fountains but with no one to admire it.
“I am not quite well this time, old man. And I don’t think I will ever be.”
The old man sighed and then took out a flower from his pocket and began to pluck its petals as he talked.
“And why is that? Jo. You have the ability to create a beautiful poem, while I have no other ability but to cherish it. A person with the power to create beautiful things is a person that could pull all things in orbiting him.” The old man said, plucking each petal with every word.
“But I cannot create a poem anymore. I cannot create anything. Perhaps the creation of nature is enough, and perhaps man only fools himself when he thinks he could create something as beautiful as the tree.” The artist placed the palm of his hand under his chin as if to hold it from digging under his skin.
“It is when man forgets about the value of the his brain and being able to think and feel and express more than the standing tree does he become a fool. ”
The artist thought for a while, but then he was reminded of how horrid thinking was, and how utterly destructing it was for one’s life.
“I don’t think you understand me, old man. I believe in myself too much, I believe in my human brain more than what it can reach. I cannot live as a creator with only the support of this brain, I need more than that. I am too weak, too frail, too much of a dreamer to hold all the orbits of this universe. And yet it pains me to know that, to know that I’m not able to create beautiful things with just this brain and myself.” He sighed, and then achingly said, “to know that I cannot forever proceed as an artist.”
It was not just sadness that engulfed the artist’s face, but rather confusion and fear and panic. And yet despite believing that he was no longer an artist, he was dreaming of a poem as he glanced towards the garden.
“I once learned at school that the Earth orbits the Sun because it is attracted to it,” the old man said as he took out another flower to pluck it, “And though I do not know as much as you do, but I believe that the human soul is attracted to the creator of beautiful things. And I am attracted to your poems, and the way your beauty inside you is poured out.”
The words of the old man made the artist smile, and somehow, the smile swept away the dust of sadness.
“I do not know how a creator creates, but I do not need to. All I need is its creations of beautiful things, as well as its existence. I believe that humans can never exist without the presence of this creator, Jo. And I strongly believe that you have this power.”
A bird with patches of blue and soft pink on its wings began to swivel along the curved walls of the wind and then zoomed to the sky �" where the artist realized where his soul lies.
“Thank you, old man. But I do not believe I have that power. A true creator knows their real power, and I am aware that my power originates somewhere else. When an artist creates beauty, they must detach themselves away from the world, the people, and life. That is the only way they can create true beauty. I don’t want to believe that I’m the creator of all beautiful things, but I want to feel the power of the real Creator and reveal it through my work. A real Creator reveals beauty, but never reveals himself.”
The artist then quietly cried, and then the old man placed the half plucked flower between his inked fingertips.
“I hope humans never stop orbiting this Creator, Jo. And I deeply hope artists never stop orbiting it too.” The old man said with a voice that contained a never-ending tunnel of hope.
It was at this moment, this moment with the him and the old man and the half plucked flower between his fingertips and the empty garden facing him, did the artist realize the difference between a human, and a creator.
“You know, old man,” the artist said while examining the half plucked flower, “I think the Creator is more attracted to the admirer of His creations.”
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