I wrote this 5 years ago after my first speaking engagement at SXSW. Still true.
SXSW
I am back from 6 days at SXSW Interactive in Austin, TX. I led a workshop then attended presentations and panels on a wide range of topics. Being there is the ultimate in complex reality. Between the overwhelming crowds and choices; the sheer logistics of eating, drinking, transporting, sleeping, and the intense focus of meeting, talking, learning, teaching, communicating, and remembering it all, it was anything but simple.
The Simplicity of Thinking Now
The only way I could keep it simple was to be focused on what was in front of me. Whether it was a person I was meeting for the first time, a slide on a screen, a lecturer, or a transportation moment, paying attention to that alone allowed it to stay as simple as it could be at the moment.
The Complexity of Thinking Not Now
Yes, I was multitasking. For example, I wanted to tweet what was being said but I also wanted to take notes. My solution? My tweets became my notes.
When I got in trouble was when I thought ahead instead of stayed with what I was doing. For example, leaving my hotel in the morning. I never forgot my badge, thank God, but I did forget my water bottles one day. Doesn’t seem like a big deal, but when water is 3.25 a bottle? It’s a big deal.
I forgot my schedule booklet one day and had to go over to registration (a long way in a big convention center) to get a new one, one not marked up with all my notes. I had left mine in the hotel bathroom when I went back in to make sure I was empty before starting my day.
Twice while at the conference I left a water or coffee behind that cost way too much to leave behind. Yes, I went back and got them each time and it added frazzlement to my day.
Less Thoughts, More Thinking
All this made me think about Simplicity. I realized I didn’t need to think less, I needed to have less thoughts. When I limited the amount of thoughts or was able to unify those thoughts into a clear thread of thinking, then I was successful in getting the most out of my time and efforts. That’s simple enough, right?
I drew the drawing and wrote the commentary 6 years ago today. Still true.
Vicious vs Kind
We in the western developed world are not usually reminded so viciously of death as they are where disease and war ravage nations with impunity.
We are also lucky in that birthdays are the kindest way of setting in front of us our own march to mortality, that we will die.
Depression vs Cake
Sound depressing? Yes and no. Yes, we will die and that thought can be a bummer. But then again no, because it also tells us that while we are alive we should eat the dang cake already! The cake may be a real cake, but it can also be a metaphorical cake.
Eat from life, take a hold of what you want, or stretch out your hand and reach for it until you can take hold. It won’t always be there, YOU won’t always be there. Don’t wait.
I drew this and wrote the commentary 2 years ago today. Still true.
Let’s consider the history of the world, shall we? What is it filled with? Good people doing terrible things. Why are they doing these terrible things? Because they don’t think they are terrible. They think they are good.
The WORST of these violators think what they are doing is good because their conscience says so. Their conscience might be in the form of GOD telling them to slaughter entire tribes. Or maybe it’s their conscience telling them it’s their superiority in intelligence or religiosity or genetics, etc. that allows them to enslave and colonize entire continents. Maybe their conscience tells them their physical strength gives them the right to own women and make them do what they want. Maybe their conscience tells them their wealth proves their worthiness to be in control over others and those others who are poor deserve their fate.
How do you avoid letting your conscience lead you astray into evil? For me, it’s by having a rules of behavior and thinking that guard against it.
Here are four actions that I practice remembering:
Being kind is more important than being right.
Knowing something to be true too quickly is not to be trusted.
Seeing the issue from the person who could be hurt’s point of view is essential.
Causing harm to a specific group of people is not my conscience acting, but my ego and my fear.
‘I Am Glad I Am An Artist’ – pen and ink on paper, 2019
This is a true story. I was in the men’s room before church and stood between to men while peeing. They were both older gentlemen (I know the drawing makes them look younger, oh well). They were talking about their retirement. I focused on what they were saying so I would remember it.
All I could think of as they talked was that I am so glad I am an artist because I don’t have to worry about retiring and having nothing to do. Artists ALWAYS have something to do.
‘What They Thought’ – pen and ink on paper, 2019
I drew these two women at a local cafe. I had the thought bubbles there for quite a while before I decided what to put in them. As I was painting the image much later I thought about how easy it is to imagine someone who is overweight thinking they are too fat and need to lose weight. But it’s not as nearly common to see a thin person and imagine they are thinking they are too skinny and need to gain weight.
It’s an assumption we make that is just another form of judgment. What’s the point of that judgment? What does it do for us?
The Anxious Parent’, pen and ink on paper, 2004 – 2019
I drew this in 2004 at Knox College where my daughter Connie was in her Freshman year. I was there for Parents Weekend and was attending a meeting on Study Abroad.
The woman was very intense and did say she was very worried about her child going abroad. I imagined her having a dream of danger and her husband calming her worries. It seemed like a nice idea to offset her obvious anxiety.
I came back to this drawing after 15 years and decided to paint it.
I drew this 16 years ago to put in my daughters’ lunches and I posted the drawing to this blog 10 years ago today. Still true.
I liked using these napkins to spark my daughters’ thinking about various ideas (they were in High School at the time). They would pass the napkin around their lunch table and a conversation would often develop as a result.
Many years later I had friends of my daughters tell me how much they enjoyed having the napkins come out each day and the conversations they would have as a result.
Makes me feel like I did something good.
Here is the original text that went with the post the first time.
So, if this is the case, what are your unbeliefs? And once you tell us that, how did your beliefs, blind or otherwise, create those unbeliefs? Or, maybe you don’t believe this quote about unbelief?
I drew this drawing and wrote the commentary 4 years ago today. Still true.
To Everything
As the song and bible passage goes, To everything there is a season. This has been a recent season of death for me. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s a natural thing. And no, I am not the one doing the dying, at least not in the short term. But in general I am at the age when one comes in contact with death a bit more frequently than when younger. In the past week specifically my father-in-law, Tom Reynolds, and a friend, Oren Miller, have died. A little over a month ago my Aunt Jean died. My father, Skeets Coleman, passed away less than a year ago. In addition I have a friend, Charlyn Shelton, almost die in a car wreck. On social media many of my friends have shared about their loved ones passing away as well. And so I have been thinking about death recently.
Sunny Mexico / Cold USA
Two weeks ago my wife and I took off on a vacation to Punta Mita, Mexico. It’s on the Pacific Coast, just north of Puerto Vallarta. We went with her brother and sister and their spouses. It’s the first vacation of it’s kind we have ever taken together. On the surface it seemed like we planned it pretty well. Mexico was at 78-80º every day while almost all of the US was below freezing with ice, snow, wind, sleet and general weather misery.
Winter Brings the Sweetness
But there was more to this trip than the good timing of being in warm weather while our homes were in freezing temps. There was also this: We all bought trip insurance because my wife’s father, Tom Reynolds, wasn’t doing very well. He had been battling cancer for over 12 years and it finally seemed to have got the better of him. While there was some hope, it was slim. But we made our best guess and thought it would be best to go on this trip sooner than later and so we did.
But with a day and a half to go in the vacation we got the call. He had taken a turn for the worse and was in the hospital. We did our best to figure out early flights home but it was not in the cards. That meant in spite of the situation we were going to be in Mexico one more full day, leaving the morning after that.
We had a choice to make. We could lounge around the pool and ocean, static and disconnected, giving us time to dwell on our not being able to get home, or we could go out and do something. We chose to go out and do something. We spent the day at a small beach village a few kilometers away from the resort. We ate, we bought some gifts, we walked around the town. We found a real estate office and fantasized about buying the various houses that were pictured for sale in the window of the office. We people watched. I took a lot of photos of scenes on the street.
We hadn’t forgotten about Tom, but we still had to live in our circumstances. And while we had some guilt for not being there or being able to get home right away, we also had enhanced gratitude for our lives knowing that someone we loved wasn’t far from being at the end of his. In other words, it was the winter of his life that gave a portion of sweetness to the summer of ours.
Warm Life in Winter
We did make it back on schedule and went straight to the hospital. Tom was holding his own but the overall situation wasn’t looking good. The cancer had spread to his brain, he had had seizures, his blood pressure had fallen then risen and he had contracted pneumonia. He was sedated, in no pain that we knew of, and had a ventilator doing his breathing for him.
Yesterday morning, 5 days after we returned, we got another call. His blood pressure was falling and his meds were maxed out, they couldn’t adjust for that anymore. We were told to gather. With his entire family was around him those closest to him told kind and funny stories about him. They told of his passions and eccentricities.
One of the great things about his family is they were raised by him and their mother to be musical. Linda’s sister taught music and choir in high school for decades. Linda had been an opera singer in her past and their brother had been in choirs as well. And so, as we gathered around him, they started singing his favorite hymns and some of our favorites, among others. I sang in the background or hummed along as I was able. But a lifetime of them knowing how to sing with each other came out and soft transcendent harmonies of love and beauty sent him on his mysterious way.
And then he was gone.
Warmth of Life in Summer
But we aren’t gone. We remain alive. We still eat and breathe and sleep. We still laugh. We still tell stories and wonder about things. We still worry about others. We still create and talk and love.
With a loved one’s passing or winter encasing us in cold we tend to see the negative, and it’s hard to argue with that. But ask yourself this: when do you most frequently hear admonitions to enjoy life, to embrace the joy and to live in the moment, to not let any opportunity pass by where you can let a loved one know (or a stranger for that matter) that you love them and are there beside them. Who do we hear that from the most? From one who has lost a loved one or almost lost their own life. It’s that brush with death that brings out in them the passion for life, right?
Running Life
After Tom died yesterday we lingered around the hospital until the funeral home came to get the body. We then went to lunch. After that it was time for me to go home and shortly thereafter I went to my job coaching runners. It was my first run in almost 2 weeks (I slacked off in Mexico, don’t judge). It was cold, foggy, misty and a bit windy. And I loved it. I loved it because I was alive to love it.
I drew the drawing and wrote the commentary 7 years ago today. Still true.
Original
I fancy myself a pretty good thinker. But considering almost all my napkin drawings start with a quote that I myself did not make up, it would be disingenuous of me to say I come up with all original ideas.
Unique
However, I do believe I am unique thinker. A unique thinker isn’t someone who thinks up something out of the blue. Instead it is someone who takes these ideas from others and combines them, mixes them, bakes them into a uniquely stated idea. Not necessarily a new idea, but an idea that has been thought through by one unique individual and come out the other side with something no one else can give it, the perspective and expression of that one person.
Finding Oneself
I think a lot of young people who are unformed in their own identity don’t understand what this means. I see it all the time on reality TV shows like American Idol. The judges say to the young person, ‘you have to just be yourself’ or ‘you have to put your own spin on it’ or ‘you just need to find your own voice’.
The least mature of the singers look blankly back at the judges, having no idea what it is they are talking about. They don’t know yet how to take another idea, (another song in this case) and make it their own because there is no ‘own’ there yet. They are doing their best to imitate a great singer but they don’t know yet how to become a great singer themselves.
Pride
The originality of your ideas isn’t as original as you probably think and it is not what you should have pride in. It is what should endow you with humility. How you take what is given to you from the outside and transform it into something uniquely yours, THAT is what you can have true pride in.
I drew the drawing and wrote the commentary 6 years ago today. Still true.
Signs of Life
My post yesterday showed a woman watching TV in the dark, pretty much unmotivated and inactive in life. She was leading a mediocre life and I illustrated it by showing her being idle while the world passed her by. But the truth is being idle is not necessarily a sign of mediocrity. It’s mostly a sign of nothing. It’s just something we all do. We all have times we are idle, not pursuing some grand goal. We just sit and read a light novel, or watch a funny TV show, or listen to frothy infectious pop music. If you have a drive to achieve something, a drive to be excellent at something, then that idle time is good. It is needed to rejuvenate your ideas, your creativity, your energy.
Signs of Death
But if you are living a mediocre life, a life unmotivated and without a flame of excellence then that same idleness is a killer. It is not rejuvenating you, it is burying you. It is helping you to die while you are still alive. So ask yourself – Are you taking a breather at the end of a long day? Then you are in good company, most of us like to do that. Or are you taking a breather from life? Then you might want to slap yourself awake and see if you might not want to pursue something greater than the killing mediocrity of never ending idleness.
Real Life
When I mentioned on twitter this morning that I was drawing a woman with curlers in her hair my friend and fellow running coach Theresa thought I might need some inspiration so she sent me a photo of herself in curlers. She says she sometimes will even stop at a convenience store to get something while in her curlers AND has been hit on a number of times. She says it has to do with her confidence, that she is who she is and likes it, curlers or not! I have to agree, that’s what confidence is all about!
Trivia Question from yesterday answered
Question: A man known to many as ‘The most hated man in America’ was suppose to be on the Titanic but missed the boat. Who was he and why did he miss it?
Answer: Henry Clay Frick. He was the chairman of Andrew Carnegie’s steel company and was the man in charge of the violent response to a worker’s strike in 1892 at the Homestead Steel Plant. As a result of that he became widely hated in the US. He and his wife, Adelaide, were ticketed to be aboard the Titanic but she sprained her ankle in Italy shortly before the voyage and they were not able to make the crossing.
Drawing in church (or anywhere) is not restricted to drawing something or someone I am looking at. Here are 5 examples of the range, from starting with a real person but adding a made-up background to doing something abstract that has no connection to a world outside itself.
The Violinist’s Hand
The drawing is of a real person…sorta. She is the violinist in church that I draw frequently. But I am not being hired to draw her portrait so I am not particularly concerned about it looking exactly like her. I have certain parts that I hope I get right and I work at that, but just like an author will tell you, sometimes the character takes on a life of their own. In the artist’s case, the lines made and the colors chosen have reasons, some known some unknown, that go beyond a likeness to the individual and into an idea, feeling or mood.
The background obviously isn’t from church. I created it to build on the idea of her looking off in the distance and hoping for help. After I drew the background I came up with what she might be thinking. I penned that in and was going to leave the last word off but then thought it would be interesting to finish the quote with a visual instead of a word.
The Stained Glass Singer
Here is another example of starting with a person, in this case a choir member. This time it looks like I went even further away from a standard portrait but it didn’t start that way.
That happened later, when I was in my studio studying the drawing. That is when I started to see the facets in her face and thought about defining them. I have done that many times before over the decades and it’s always a fun exercise to work on.
But what made it special this time was realizing that building those up could turn her into a stained glass window. It seems like a perfect thing to do.
Sad Girl
The only thing remotely connected to a real person here is a general shape of the face, but even that is exaggerated. It was just a shape I saw and remembered as I passed someone in the hall of the church.
The rest of the drawing I wasn’t looking at anybody or thinking about anyone in particular. The initial line drawing of the shape gave me a melancholy feeling so I drew the rest of the portrait to match that.
I chose the blue and yellow stripes of the hair first. The shirt was a solid at that point but I felt one solid block of color would be too heavy at the bottom. I liked the idea of something bridging the two sides of her so I added stripes to the shirt. It also allowed me to create a sense of volume to her body.
Sometimes a situation arises that causes you to make a decision you otherwise would not make. I started filling in the pink background on the left and slowly realized the marker was running out of ink. In most cases I would just refill but I didn’t have any refill ink. So, I had to consider what could I do on the opposite side if I wasn’t going to use the same color. I liked the idea of using a cool color to break up the symmetry of the image and to cast a different mood to the two different sides so I went with a pale green.
At the very end I did not like the big blank space between her eyes and her mouth so I decided to add her blushing. It seemed just the right finishing touch to the image and her melancholy.
The Aliens
Sometimes the distance between what you start with and what you end with is light years away. I ended with a couple of goofy aliens landing on earth. But what I started with was a breast.
I had this idea, yes while in church, of a nude woman floating in the air. So, I drew a breast to start. I realize two things at this point. One, I made the breast too big to make my idea of a whole person floating feasible and two, church might not be the best place to draw this image even if it did fit.
So, what to do? I contemplated what I had and saw a possible space ship. One shaped like a flying breast it’s true but I figured I could make that not so apparent.
And of course a space ship has to have aliens so I decided to make them look like bumbling boobs, just for fun.
Spiral #7
Sometimes I am completely in my head at church, not looking at anything. This is the case with this drawing of spirals, one of a series I have been doing lately.
While it is completely abstract (meaning no reference to anything beyond itself) that does not mean I am not considering the possible ideas that might come from the drawing.
In this case I was very deliberate about having the four quadrants be mirror images of the diagonal quadrant and to have the colors be the same. At this point my thoughts are about how the colors are reflecting groups of people and how they interact – tribes, colonies, and yes churches.
That doesn’t mean I expect someone looking at this drawing to see that, or to see anything at all. It’s just where my mind meanders as I am creating these sorts of images.
The great thing about art, and in particular abstract art, is that everyone is right in their opinion. There is no absolute truth in art. What you want it to mean, it means.
In 2017 I drew this in the cafe of the church I attend. I finished the drawing today, just about 2 years later.
When I made all the thought bubbles in the drawing I as thinking of what they could all be thinking that would make them unique and similar at the same time and the idea of numbers came to mind. We frequently think in numbers, even if we don’t realize it so I started writing down various numbers that we get attached to and sometimes obsess about; money, age, time, distance, size, temperature are just a few.
I showed this on my live stream as I was drawing it and one person commented, ‘Eternity isn’t a number.’ And he is right. But it is a concept of time and time is all about numbers so it still fits. Plus I did the drawing at a church, where the idea of eternity is talked about probably more than any other place.
I drew this 9 years ago. I was thinking about my wife Linda when I drew it and wrote the commentary. I am still thinking about her and her happiness this Valentine’s Week.
Yes, compatibility matters and mutual interests matter and attraction matters.
But nothing matters like wanting your partner’s happiness.
Nothing brings joy like realizing that what brings your partner happiness is something within your grasp to give.
Back when I was single (pre-2006) I used to go to Barnes & Noble regularly to read and draw. I don’t remember anything about this woman now except that she was intensely writing, oblivious to her surroundings. 16 years later I unexpectedly received a large collection of colored pencils so I went back to this drawing I had always loved and finished it.
‘Cafe View’ Tulsa, OK, Marker on Paper, 2017-2018
Once a month Linda takes care of babies in the nursery of our church instead of attending the service. Often I will sit in the cafe on those days instead of in the service and draw. These two men were trying to keep cool by coming indoors on a very hot July morning. I don’t often have the opportunity to do a true city view with large buildings close up so after I had drawn the men I focused on that.
‘The Song Made Them Cry’ San Francisco, CA, Marker on Paper, 2018 – 2019
I was in the Bay Area to run the Oakland Marathon and was attending my daughter Chelsea’s cafe concert in the Mission District of San Francisco the evening before the race. I saw these two women in rapt attention to a particular song and took advantage of the moment to draw them. They both were actually crying.
‘The Grey Day’ Tulsa, OK., Marker on Paper, 2019
I was at a Starbucks waiting for my car to be repaired and I noticed a very striking woman dressed in shades of grey. She was in high contrast, with dark eyes, lips, hair and nails set off against the palest of pale skin and paper. I did the line drawing quickly and used my color imagination later to create the feeling I had looking at her.
Here is a partial list of the things that might enslave you or me (if you think of others, feel free to let me know in the comments).
Alcohol / Drugs
Insecurity
Depression / Anxiety
Phone / Social Media
Change
The scale
Rules / Society standards
Perfection
Control
Shopping
Work
Guilt
Sex / Porn
Expectations
Responsibilities
Sugar
I have personally have dealt with or still deal with at least 5 on this list and if I include my family and close friends then I have dealt indirectly with almost every single one to some degree. I expect if you are old enough you have too.
The Hard Part
Here is the hard part. Knowing we are enslaved isn’t enough. If we are more interested in overcoming than polishing then we must ask and seek the answer to this question:
Why do we polish our chains?
Here’s why we need to ask this question. Saying you hate something about yourself or your situation is only looking at half the issue. The other question we have to ask is:
What do we gain from it?
Because knowing what we gain from it is key to figuring out how to let it go and pick up something else that isn’t as destructive.
What are your answers?
Drawing and Commentary @ 2019 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
Quote by Marcel Mariën, 1920-1993, Belgian Surrealist
Ten years ago today I started what is now ‘The Napkin’. My first post on the website introduced my readers to why. The original post ends with events of 2009. Since then ‘The Napkin’ has been seen and read all around the world and as a result I have gained many true and wonderful friends from my home town all the way to the most distant of lands. Something I will forever treasure.
The Napkin Dad Daily began as a series of drawings and quotes on napkins that I put in my daughters’ lunches during their middle and high school years, most every day from 1998 -2004.
I started doing the napkins while I was unemployed and making their lunches for school. I did 3 a day, one for each daughter. After many months I felt sort of depressed because, as funny as it sounds, it was the my main creative outlet, the only artwork I was doing at the time, and they were all being thrown away every day. ‘Oh well’ I said, and went about doing them until the end of the year.
My wife at the time was not happy in the marriage (we later divorced) and took the girls to California to visit her family in the summer, and I was not invited. I was home alone on Father’s day when the girls called to tell me they had hid their presents for me around the house. I walked around the house following their hints and found my oldest’s and my youngest’s presents.
My middle daughter directed me to a bottom drawer somewhere and there I found a napkin she had drawn for me …
and below it…there were all the napkins from the entire year! She had saved every one and given them back to me for Father’s Day. It truly was the best present I ever got, I cried when I found them. She really didn’t, and couldn’t, understand how much it meant to me to have her do that, and to have them still in existence. I continued to draw the napkins for 4 more years, almost every day, until my youngest graduated from High School.
In 2005 I started scanning them little by little and posting them to my flickr.com site, which I had set up for my photographic work but had been posting drawings to as well. The napkins got a great response and I started to consider ways I could get them out to a larger audience. In 2008 I started the blog you see here, the Napkin Dad Daily, and started posting a napkin a day. Eventually I added commentary below some of the napkins, in response to conversations that were going on in the comments, or on flickr.
In November of 2008 I was enthusiastic over the exciting presidential campaign and glad that Obama had won. I went looking through my napkin collection to see if I could find one that would be reflective of my feelings the morning after the election. I could not and so decided to draw a new napkin, the first in almost 4 years at that point. I posted the napkin on my blog and on flickr and had an incredible response. Hundreds of hits and comments came in, as they did on many other images people posted that day.
A few weeks later I got an email from flickr stating that Time Magazine was interested in one of my ‘photos’ for inclusion in an upcoming issue. They said if I was interested to contact Time for further information, which I did. I found out they were interested in using that napkin drawing in their ‘Person of the Year’ issue about the President-elect Barack Obama.
When the issue came out the local media in Tulsa took notice and I started to do some print and TV interviews. In anticipation of that I made my first self-published book, a t-shirt with the Obama napkin on it, and a series of coffee mugs. You can see those at my website. A number of companies and individuals saw the various segments and articles and as a result drawing, web design and graphic design work has come my way.
A local gallery & coffee house expressed interest in having a show of the napkins. In May of 2009 I opened the show, title ‘Absorbent Ideas’.
To keep up to date with the napkin story subscribe to The Napkin Dad Daily. you will get a napkin a day AND find out when anything new and exciting happens.
When I first drew this I was anticipating having word bubbles for each of the people, each one saying something that would clue the viewer in to who was understanding and who was misunderstanding.
But I was streaming the drawing of the image live and the people watching the broadcast had different answers to this question. At that point I realized it would be much more interesting to just have the viewer make their own choice as to who is seeing things clearly and who is not. I decided the word bubbles weren’t needed.
And so I ask you, who is understanding little and who is misunderstanding a lot? By the way, just in case you are the type that worries about this, there is no right answer. Your choice is valid, as are your reasons. So, let’s hear them!
I drew this 10 years ago today. It was shortly after I had restarted drawing on napkins after a few years hiatus after my daughters’ graduated from High School. You can see I kept the same style of a quick line drawing only adding a little color. As time went on I simply added more of all that and took more time on each drawing.
Here are my questions: Who runs over them? Whose fault is it? Why did they stay in the middle?
What are your answers?
Drawing @ 2019 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
“We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.” – Ambrose Bierce
I drew this and wrote the commentary 6 years ago today (my birthday, by the way).
Perfect
I had a conversation yesterday with a beautiful and fit woman. The topic? How she gets judged and made fun of for being ‘perfect’. I have had this conversation before with other women as well. It’s almost easier to make fun of that ‘perfect’ person, isn’t it? None of the guilt or shame you feel when laughing at a person who looks funny or talks funny. That would be mean, cruel, hateful, immature, ignorant, and judgmental and we wouldn’t do that, would we?
Better Than
So what is it when the object of your derision or judgment is ‘better’ than you, not worse? What name do you give to your response when the person you are making fun of or cutting down somehow appears to be nicer, smarter, more fit, more thoughtful, more giving, more balanced, more conscientious, more diligent, more loving, more sensitive, wealthier, prettier, sexier, happier?
I have a few words we could use. How about mean, cruel, hateful, immature, ignorant, and judgmental? Perhaps we could add in jealousy and envy for good measure?
All That is Hidden
Let’s just focus on the word ignorant. We will focus on it because it applies to what you know. And guess what, unless you’ve taken the time to care, YOU KNOW NOTHING about any person’s insides. You don’t know the struggle she’s had to get up at 5am most mornings to exercise before the kids are awake. You don’t know about her garish stretchmarks. You don’t know the abuse she had at the hands of her mother. You don’t know the dyslexia she had to overcome in school. You don’t know the prejudice she felt being so tall and skinny and flat chested in 9th grade. You don’t know about the skin condition she has on her back that makes her itch like crazy. You don’t know about how hard she works to stay connected to her husband who is busy all the time. You don’t know about her debilitating fear of flying. In other words, YOU KNOW NOTHING about her interior and very little about her exterior.
Your Quiver
You see the facade and you make fun because she is an easy target. And she is an easy target. But if you can target her for derision, you also have the power to target her for love, compassion, mercy, patience, kindness, gentleness and more. But the truth is, it doesn’t matter who the target is, it matters what the weapon is. Are you aiming to be derisive, judgmental person? Use the arrow of hate. Are you aiming to be a loving and compassionate one? Use the arrow of love. You have both in your quiver, just bring out the right one and shoot. The more you reach for the right arrow, the more that arrow will end up in your hand without you even knowing it.
_______________
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman, who has a lot of scars.
I drew this and wrote the essay 5 years ago today. I still believe it.
The Ballerina in Your Living Room
Back in the 1990’s I taught Art Appreciation at a Community College in California. I once took my students on a field trip to San Francisco to do some gallery hopping. While in one gallery I noticed a student contemplating a certain Abstract Expressionist painting. I asked her what she was thinking and she said, “I wouldn’t put it in my house.” That statement got me thinking so I gathered up the class and asked how many others had thought that same thing. More than half raised their hands. I then said, “Well guess what? It is unlikely that that painting, or any of the other paintings here, will ever BE in your house. They all have price tags of $100,000.00 to $500,000.00.”
I continued, “Would you go to a Ballet and say, ‘Well, I wouldn’t have that Ballerina in my living room.’? Of course not. You KNOW she is not going to be in your living room. You don’t need to judge her as if she is. Actually, you don’t need to judge her at all. And you don’t need to judge the art in this room. You might enjoy the work more if you judge it less. Now let’s evaluate these paintings again, without the idea of possession and judgment in the way of our enjoyment”. We then walked around talking about the work without judging it good or bad or worthy of being over our couch. We were all much happier without the judgment.
Obsessed with Judging
I believe America is obsessed with judging and I think it’s debilitating to creativity, compassion and happiness. I don’t mean there is not a time to judge. I like talent shows and I don’t mind the judging that has to go on there. We also need to judge behaviors to keep ourselves safe. The law is all about judging, and I am a fan of the law in general. But think about how almost every aspect of American (and probably many other countries’ social life) is filled with non-stop judging.
The Non-Judgmental Tattoo
Let’s take one example, tattoos. I happen to like tattoos, yet I have none of my own. Neither does my wife. I am pretty sure none of my 4 daughters do either, but if they do, they aren’t apparent. But I like tattoos nonetheless. Why? Because they are interesting. And they aren’t mine. They are simply something I witness go by. Part of what I call the passing parade. I can witness, admire, observe, evaluate, investigate, explore, question, wonder, imagine, and otherwise enjoy a tattoo that passes in front of me. But I will unlikely do any of those things if I judge it first. Judging cuts off those things, cuts off happiness. Judgment says good or bad and done. Case is closed.
But why does the case have to be closed? What is so important that I have to render a judgment of a woman’s snake tattoo as she walks by. Why can’t I just enjoy it, experience it? What will happen if I just look at it, explore it, contemplate it’s color, texture, shape, and meaning. Why not ask her about her tattoo? Why not just let it pass without judging it? We will be happier, I know that much.
What other examples can you think of where we tend to judge quickly when there isn’t any real need to judge at all?
Don’t Judge
Here are some tattoos I have found and photographed over the years. It always makes me happy when I find one. See if you can simply explore them without judgment.
It’s not that easy, is it? But it is worth it to escape the debilitating, uncreative, unhappy prison of judgment.
How much does your soul weigh? Your personality? How about your character? Does your Passion weigh anything? What about your intelligence, how heavy is that? Have you ever had your sense of humor weighed at the Doctor’s office? Is there a spot on the medical chart for the weight of your love, commitment, insight, compassion, mercy, tenderness, diligence, patience, opinions, wisdom, spirituality?
Nobody gives a eulogy and talks about a person’s weight. What they will talk about are all those other things mentioned above. Those are the parts of you that will remain.
In the original 2016 post I wrote a longer story about a friend of mine in Russia who got herself in trouble by lying about the scale and the number on it. If you would like to read it, here is the link.
In the Book of Revelation there is a terrible dragon. Here is how it is described: “Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crown on its heads.” Rev. 12:3
Well, this isn’t that dragon. This is Antenna, that dragon’s younger sister. She’s not talked about in the bible, probably to preserve the older one’s evil reputation. Antenna isn’t terrible and evil. She’s just trying to make her way in the world.
Her name is Antenna because she was conceived on an antenna. The antenna didn’t fare too well in that tryst and had to be replaced but it still held fond memories for her mum and dad.
Each head also had her own name; Liza, Milly, Ruth, Martha, Alice, Sarah and Dorcas, which they got after their parents watched Seven Brides for Seven Brothers on late night TV.
Antenna had one baby dragon with 3 heads. It was a boy named Laundromat because that is the building on top of which he was conceived. That building fared okay after just a few repairs. The 3 heads were named Babe, Lou and Joe because the father was a big Yankees fan.
Antenna had a hard time early in life because of her older brother’s terrible reputation. She always wanted to defend her brother as just being misunderstood, but it was hard when he basically was responsible for all sorts of cosmic death and destruction wherever he went.
She tried to make up for it by being very nice to everyone she met. That also was not easy since the heads all had their own personalities. Some were quite rude, some were quiet introverts and a couple were just big loudmouths. It was really quite annoying at times but she did the best she could.
She eventually moved to the northern coast of California and lived among the Redwoods where she didn’t look nearly as big and scary to those who came to visit. She worked as a rescue specialist helping to find people lost at sea or in the forest. She retired at age 812 and spent the rest of her years giving tours to Japanese tourists who came to see the big trees and dragon.
Her son Laundromat (Launny for short) became a nano-engineer with a number of high-tech start ups and had 49 patents by the time he was 531.
I drew this and wrote the commentary 8 years ago. It’s even more apropos today.
Well, Aristotle IS one of the fathers of rhetoric so who better to ask a rhetorical question, right?
Death and Maiming
It’s been a tough emotional week for me. Not anything personal in my own life but due to the events in Tucson. I love my country. I have loved it since I was a little kid and learned about George Washington. He was, and still is, in my opinion, the greatest public hero of any age.
I was 8 when JFK was killed. My parents loved him and worked for him. My father even ran for the Senate in 1962, inspired by him.
I was 13 when MLK and RFK were killed. I will never forget walking into a drug store in Darien, Connecticut after MLK was murdered and hearing a man say ‘that N***** deserved it’. I was 13 and as angry as I had ever been at that moment. I didn’t speak up and was ashamed afterwards. Since then I almost always speak up if someone says something grossly offensive.
I was 26 when Reagan was shot. I was not a fan of President Reagan but it had nothing to do with that. I respect my presidents. I start each term with each president filled with hope as if I were a naive young man. Update, 2019 – For the first time ever, I was not able to have that same naive faith after the election of 2016.
I am now 55, will be 56 in a little over a week. It’s weird, it’s almost as if this event in Tucson hurts more than the others. I know Giffords is ‘just’ a congressional representative, not a president or candidate, but it’s almost because of that that it hurts more. She ‘represents’ and it’s as if someone was trying to kill that, not just a person. Add on to that that people who had every reason to believe they were doing something uniquely and gloriously American that day suffered death and injury for no other reason than they wanted to connect to their representative.
The Power of Words
I love rhetoric and the power of words. I love how they can inspire us. I hate how they can turn us on each other. I hate how they can be used by selfish people for selfish ends. I hate how they can mask lies and evil deeds. But I think the power of good in words can overcome that power of evil. And I won’t ever give up believing that, ever.
The napkin above is light, it’s funny, it’s absurd. It’s rhetorical. I had to lighten my emotional load a bit by drawing it. Don’t forget though, that it is not a rhetorical question to ask if we can’t be civil with each other.
I drew this drawing and wrote the commentary 4 years ago today. It references a drawing and short story I published the day before. I republished it a few days ago.
Self-Esteem
I wrote a short story yesterday about a homeless woman and her daughter. The mother was confronted by a woman who judged her negatively without really knowing her. The daughter was upset about the judgment and her mother used the opportunity to explain that the judgment wasn’t based on the lady knowing them. She explained that she judged because she had some hurt in her that she was trying to get out and judging others was her way of doing that. The child was lucky to have a mother to help explain that their self-esteem came from them, not from some random person who did not know them.
Other’s Story About You
I am guessing those of you reading this have been called one of the words in the drawing above. Some are negative and some are positive, but all of them are fables, or stories. That doesn’t mean they may not have some truth in them. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. But at the most they are incomplete statements of who you are and at the least they are outright lies. Wherever they are in the arch of truth, the reason they are spoken has more to do with the person speaking than it has to do with you.
It doesn’t make their story your story.
Your Story About Yourself
When I have a model for one of my art projects I will often ask the following question: ‘What is your favorite facial feature on yourself?’ Many will answer in the following way: “Well, most people say it’s my ‘type in facial feature here’. I, in response, will say, “I am not asking what others think is your best feature, I am asking YOU what you think is.” That gets them thinking and they often, but not always, will change their answer. They might say, “No one ever says this, but I love my nose best because it reminds me of my dad.” or something like that. That to me illustrates the difference between the story you would tell about yourself and the story others may tell about you.
Trust It
Look hard for your own story in the midst of all that outside noise and believe it. Don’t let others’ story about you decide who you are.
I drew this napkin 18 years ago to put in my daughters’ lunches. I published it on this blog 10 years ago today.
A truth to remember for all those in the middle of the Big L, whether Good L or Bad L.
This is why holding on to transient highs and lows as if they are built to last is harmful and self-defeating. I don’t mean you can’t enjoy the Good L that comes along. But you need to live with the understanding it isn’t meant to be permanent, any more than a souffle is. Eat it up when it is ready, take full advantage of the Good L when it is before you. But don’t try to put it in the fridge and eat it tomorrow. Make a new souffle, a new Good L, tomorrow instead.
“The only sure thing about luck is that it will change.” – Bret Harte
