Yesterday's Word of the Day was "tumultuous". It has a few meanings. All of them center around a loud noise, confusion and disorder. Every single one of us have moments like that, days like that... years. Some of us thrive in them. We somehow make sense of the madness and survive. Some of us put on a brave face and stumble through it. And then some of us buckle under its weight. The loud confusion of real change is scary. It can be utterly heart-breaking. But change is necessary and life is life.

Something I've noticed all these of years of being on dA... as artists, we're survivors. I have to laugh because, as artists, we're also our own worst enemies and perpetually reaching for a goal that changes with every click of the button, sketch of the pencil, flick of the paintbrush, clack of the keyboard. That knack for survival comes from our own need to make something of ourselves in an ever-changing world of creation. It goes so far beyond art. It's who we are at our bare deepest core.

Dare to make a change. Swim in the awful thickness of the ache that comes afterwards and then make something of that disorderly confusing noise. No one can do this but you. You are an artist. You are awesome.