A child's psyche is a refreshing perception of how the world should be viewed or experienced. To a child, there is a clear distinction between what is good and bad, of pure and tainted, of right and wrong. Unlike adults, a child perceives things around him, as it is, pure and simple. To him an apple is just an apple and nothing else. He may notice the imperfections of the apple on the outside and blurt it out almost spontaneously without restraint or reservation. That is why a child's view is always perceived as fair and frank. Whereas to us adults, we dilly-dally with so many random thoughts before we speak. We analyze first where the apple is from (origin), of what variety it came from (type), of how it was tended (organic or genetically modified). In the process of these uncalled for questions, we miss the moment to savor its taste, its freshness, and its essence. The more we learn and experience life, the more we set ourselves apart from what is essential and in the process we lose touch of what is pure and simple.
We tend to put color on almost everything around us, including our feelings. A stranger's smile may be misconstrued as malicious or flirtatious, whereas it is just a friendly smile in fact. A friend's offer of advice may be mistaken as interfering or domineering, whereas it is a plain and simple concern for your well being. A colleague's witty comment may be taken as insulting or with double meaning whereas it is just an outburst of emotion over a joyous moment. We mask our happiness with forced humility for fear that others would think we are being boastful to express our sheer gladness over a major success. The only dividing line between humility and pure arrogance is our admission and acknowledgement that behind our every success there are people who gave us a helping hand at one point in time.
Why can we not be like children again? We were young once and yet we had quickly forgotten how it was. Before, we look at life as a world of opportunities and adventures. We dreamed of things we thought would be the trend of the future. We never shied away from a challenge over a great adventure. Whenever we fail, we stand up and face it head on, knowing that in the end we will succeed with wisdom on our side. We were the dreamers of dreams, the masters of our imagination! We never feared to think of the unthinkable because we do not know the learner's implied limitations. The making of an inventor have a common trait with a child and that is he always thinks of how to overcome a given limitation.
There is so much to learn from a child, the virtues of humility for accepting our limitations, of perseverance for trying again and again to learn how to do it, of patience for accepting our weakness and striving for perfection knowing too well that we need time, of hope that our situation is not hopeless, of expectant faith that we will achieve what we aim for, of harmonious coexistence with other children with no sense of envy, greed and malice.
The painting(s) to be aims to capture visually these virtues children possess which we adults need to emulate and draw inspiration from. Portraits of children at different stages in their growing up will be attempted to express their joys, their sorrow, their simplicity, their complexity, their refreshing insights to the world we have made ready for them. In the process, may this be an eye-opener for most of us who too often than not have forgotten how it was when we were growing up.
