A thing that happens

There is a thing that happens when you tell someone that you are into making games.

In their mind they probably go: "Games? These silly things on my phone? Or those power fantasy murder simulators? You make those?" Not that they judge you, or question your morals. They just don't know much about what you are talking about, and most of the time, also don't know that they don't know much about it.

I like this thing when it happens. It is an opportunity to explain things.

Things

If you are past your adolescent days of debating what art is, you know as well as I do that the question "What is art?" is not a good one. It's a question like "What is happiness?" or "What is hope?". Happiness is you feeling happy, which means nothing. You can feel content, you can feel at peace, you can be joyful or be having fun, or none above, and still call yourself happy without actually knowing what it exactly means. And that is fine. The words "happy", "hope", and "art" are among those that are useful to us only if they don't have an exact meaning.

A good question about art, however, would be "What is artistic about this?" For music, and theater, and literature, and cinema, everyone has an answer. It is pretty, it is aesthetically pleasing, it is clever. It requires coordination, coreography, effort. It makes me feel.

​Things that make you feel are things that are, no one would deny, artistic. Therefore, art. Art is not just whatever makes you feel. But whatever makes you feel, is in one way or another, art.

Read More