Beginning Somewhere

 

“What are you doing Elise?”  I asked my just-turned-four years old daughter.

“I’m drawing,” she told me. 

I looked at the paper she had before her.  Her sketch looked like a bunch of squiggles.  “What is it?”  I asked her.  “Is it a picture of boa constrictors attacking an alligator?”

“No, Dad,” Elise said, much like an abstract painter discovering that a gallery had accidentally hung her painting upside down.  “No, they are balloons!”

“They don’t look anything like balloons,” her older sister, Victoria said.  “They just look like scribbles.”

I squinted at the image.  I’m a bit biased, but I have seen worse artwork in my time on this earth.  “I can see the balloons,” I said.  “You’re doing great Elise.  I’m looking forward to seeing more things your draw.”

Elise didn’t say anything.  Instead, she picked up a different marker and started making more marks on her paper.  Some might have said she was scribbling, but there was an intentionality that belied the abstract nature of her drawing.

This world is full of critics.  Some of them may even live in your own family.  They are quick to tell you how your efforts are not unique, and you aren’t particularly creative.

It is easy to feel discouraged.  What is the point of making an effort when you will never be the best at anything?

I take photos.  I often find myself struggling out of bed at 5 am to wander out to some neglected spot to try to take a few images of the sun showing itself to the waiting world.  I am no Ansel Adams and there are hundreds of better photographers out there, but that doesn’t really matter.

What matters is that it is something that I enjoy.  More than that, if I can capture just a fraction of the beauty that God placed in this scene, that is enough for me.

I worry about the future.  Artificial Intelligence will write better than beginning writers and I wonder if many will simply give up and let computers do the work for them.  If so, where will the future Tolstoys and Tolkiens and Twains come from?

The problem is never that you had to begin somewhere.  The problem is that you gave up and stayed there.

So, I would give encouragement, not just to my own daughter, but to every budding, struggling artist and writer – to every musician and painter – keep on!  The scribbles of today may become lines tomorrow and someday they will even become coherent visions that speak to others.

Carry on!  Even the greatest of painters began, just like my daughter, scribbling balloons on blank sheet of paper.