life is art, if you so choose

And the truth about us, as I know it, is that how we love, how we give, and how we suffer is just about the sum of who we are. The transmutation of suffering into love – the transmutation of the wear and tear and helplessness of living, of the rage it can induce into compassion and care – is what we call art. Anyone who performs that alchemy within and then gives another the means to it – whether with a poem or a painting or an act of kindness – is what I would call an artist.

- Maria Popova, essayist, book author, poet, literary and arts commentator, and cultural critic