I Am An Artist

I am an artist. Yes, I am an artist, even if I fail to bring forth a single work of art. I lack the practical skill and the theoretical basis to be a musician, painter, or sculptor and the general, historical, and linguistic education for poet and philosopher. Well, the skills might be acquired; the rest I have. It seems too late for acquiring these skills systematically, moreover, beginning in youth, because of ignorance, and at ripe manhood, because of knowledge, I have lacked perseverance and focus on a small area. I am a miniaturist at heart.

My mind is a cornucopia, overflowing with ideas and interests, and brimming with a Wealth of Notions. Instead of choosing an art, I study the artist type, that is myself, one who has a creative gift and drive even if I never produce a work of art in the conventional sense. Self-consciousness, I say, is the artist's only good fortune.I will tell you who I am, from A to Z -- or at least to W (we free spirits and intellectual vagabonds don't always make it all the way to Karlsbad, so to speak).

I Accept disorder, and, yes, I am Withdrawn. But I am altruistic, energetic, industrious, persistent, self-assertive, and versatile. Then too, I am attracted to the mysterious, I defy conventions, am independent in judgment and thinking, and have oddities of habit. Some would say I am radical. It's true I can be discontented, I can disturb organization, and I am a fault-finder. I make mistakes, am stubborn, and temperamental, and so on. But that's who I am.