What is art?

I came across this little graphic the other day when I was exploring an internet wormhole. (thanks to ancientegyptonline.co.uk) Our society is crammed full of references to a sixth sense, with no explanation of what it may be, and lo! and behold! the Egyptians twigged it eons ago. Thought is a 6th sense, a pattern recognition system that keeps us aware of where the tiger is when it is stealthed. Brilliant! Don't I just love it when I solve all of life's philosophical problems with an internet image? I've solved the question of "what?" Then I started thinking... "why?" If the only purpose of our senses is to either avoid the tiger or be the tiger, then that's all we would ever do.

So what do we do between feeding and fleeing? We play. We create. We strive to find fulfillment using the senses we have. As a verb, we art. We attempt to create an emotional connection with one another using some combination of our senses, by showing the world how we interpret our 6 senses. A visual artist may paint, a musician may compose. A chef will tease our sense of smell, and then satisfy it with the perfect complementary taste. A scientist will spend years composing and proving mathematical equations simply for the chance to positively effect the world in some small way. A massage therapist will lay their hands on someone to put them at ease. Anything to show that our experience is both unique and ubiquitous.

I believe that art is synonymous with love, what Aristotle and his ilk called philia. Friendship. If I am evoking an emotional response in another living thing, I am creating art. (I couldn't take myself seriously when I wrote out arting...)

tl;dr: Art is love. Go Art.