Artfully Alive

"Art makes me feel more painfully alive than life does." 

Going all out and quoting myself here. But then again, who else is going to?

There is this feeling of pain and love that I only feel when in contact with art. Something that I have never experienced in a human relationship. An uplifting of the soul. A skipped heartbeat. A missed breath. A sudden urge to leave it all and spend all my living days in that state.

The first time I experienced this was while listening to Hallelujah, by Jeff Buckley. That first verse, when his voice lifts and the music follows and it brings your soul with it. That is when I realized I was alive.

That song is only one of the things that does that to me, when it comes to music.

When it comes to words it is probably anything written by Shakespeare.
When it comes to paintings it is Le Dejeuner by Monet.
When it comes to films it is Apocalypse Now by Francis Ford Coppola.

And many others of course.

And every time I encounter something new that makes me feel like that I get really excited!
And I surround myself with that thing and I try to eat, drink and breath it so that I will always remember what it is like to be alive.

Because there is no more wonderful and painful feeling than that.

What makes your heart skip a beat?