The Consummate Artist

Every truth, every reality has a core, a center that is the essence of what it is, a small basic part that speaks to everyone in some small way.

Imagine loving apples. All your life you have loved apples. You know that lots of people love apples for one reason, or another. Most people regard them as something to simply eat, a way to fill their stomachs with a palatable substance at one time or another.

You eat apple after apple until you discover that at the core of the apple is a seed that you can use to grow more apples and tap into this thing you have. This thought puts you ahead of most of your neighbors right away. Next, you plant the seeds and grow the apples and discover that some people love apples a little more than others. You begin to experiment and discover so much more.

Some just like the way it looks, but even that is open to diversification. They want red, or green, or yellow apples. Others like a specific shape. They want plump round apples that they can touch and look at, or fat juicy ones they can bite into and feel with both their hands and their tongues. Some want small skinny ones so they can make toys and dolls reminiscent of other times. You begin to provide these things and you become an entrepreneur.

After a while a realization dawns that there is a group who really want to see what you can do with these apples. They will pay to watch you smash them into apple juice, or beat them into applesauce, or toast them over a fire with a little sugar and spice, so you open a whole new set of avenues.

Then there are those who want to talk about them, how to grow them, how to cook them, what the best ways to prepare them are, so you walk around conversing with these people who come to buy your apples, all the while displaying them in all the myriad ways you have learned.

There will be people who only want to collect great barns filled with apples and people who have no interest in anything other than cooking them and even some who seem to need the whole experience. They want to feel like they are part of the process. You nurture them, talk to them, share little bits and pieces of yourself now and then and after a while, you realize you have created the ultimate empire.

You have a tiny kingdom based on a single reality whose base has become so broad and comprehensive that it is now a way of life. You have orchestrated a symphony based on the apple. It is so fantastic that thousands of people now flock to your doorstep every day and leave satisfied, no matter what their interest in the apple is.

You have become the consummate artist, reaching out and touching people in a million little ways with nuances so finite and subtle almost no one realizes how good you really are. You are an artist in the finest sense, a working, living example of art in the round, a dream that has become a waking reality.