Your life is a canvas

What makes you, who you are?  Is it defined by how you look?  If it is then would a twin be you too?  The answer most people will give to that is no.  That leads on to another question then, do your personality traits and your characteristics define you?  If they do then if someone else shares all of these, are they you too?  Again the same answer will be given.  The further you follow this chain of questions the more you begin to realise that the only thing that makes you "you" is the simple definition "I am" - beyond that everything else is consequential.

Someone who looks just like you, talks just like you, shares all your interests, even someone who has experienced everything you have been through is still not you.  You can be as similar to other people as can be physically possible, they'll never be you.  If technology permitted us to flash clone you and in an instant have an exact clone that was an exact copy right down to an atomic level and literally had every single memory you do and acted just like you because you were the person that was copied, they still wouldn't be you.

When you stop and think about this you begin to see yourself not as who you are but as a canvas upon which you paint an image to show the world.  You pursue your interests, explore your personality traits, exhibit your characteristics in the attempt to paint a masterpiece.  The thing is, as is true with art in itself, what appeals to you won't appeal to everyone.  Surrealist paintings, cubist influences, to impressionism as examples of styles all of these are very different, going further than this the medium used can vary greatly too, from acrylics, oils, waxes, chalks, through to poster paints.  Your canvas is yours to paint on and fill with what you want to show the world.

Every now and then in life we are forced to stop and take a step back and look at our canvas and see exactly what we have made of our lives.  For some people during those moments of reflection they choose to make a change, maybe whitewash the canvas and start again, or cover up parts and start again.  Through all of this one thing remains true - the canvas size is fixed and since you only get one, inevitably everything you have done already lingers behind.  It's easy to wash over paints that were not extreme.  Dull colours are easily hidden and covered with white paint allowing you to start again.  If you went too wild in your excitement however those bold colours, and fluorescent hues you once thought were a bright idea become the parts that are the hardest to cover up.  Now for some there is the argument that you shouldn't have to cover them up.  I like that idea, but for many people the remnants of their failed experiments do not fit into the perfect image they have in their mind.  That leaves you with the problem of dealing with your past, asking how many times you have to go back to square one, how many times you have to whitewash the canvas before the past no longer bleeds through.

Then there are the people who during their times of reflection retreat into a destructive mindset.  These are the people who instead of whitewashing the canvas they choose to cover it in black paint it instead.  As melodramatic as that image may seem, it does perhaps reflect quite aptly the descent into depression that grips the minds of some.  Everything about who and what you are is blacked out until you stand before a canvas that holds nothing but darkness.  Then comes the question of whether to start again at all or to just walk away - the ramifications of which I am sure you can deduce for yourself.

When you find yourself standing in front of a canvas black or white, with the desire to start again it is at this point you seek to imbue a passion in your painting that you never felt before.  To a writer and to a painter there is one thing we share in common - there is simultaneously nothing more exciting and nothing more terrifying than a blank page or a blank canvas.  A world of infinite potential stares back at you from that emptiness, and a fear lingers in the back of your mind of "what if" that nags you with pestering glee - what if you can't fill it.  Sooner or later you have to start, with something, anything.  If you don't do something it will remain blank.  The pursuit of perfection can paralyse you from trying to do anything at all for fear that one tiny mistake will ruin the whole thing and you have to start over.

The greatest writers and the greatest painters shared one thing in common, they realised that perfection is an illusion.  They realised that there is beauty to be found in mistakes.  That life is filled with colour, and darkness.  That the artist becomes a master when they take control of their work and create something that they want, for themselves, not for the rest of the world.  When you stop trying to please everyone else and start trying to please yourself you find a newfound focus.  No longer do you as "will they like this?" instead you ask "do I like this?" and if the answer is yes you keep going, and if no, then you work on it until you do.

After all is said and done there's only one question you have to ask - do you like your canvas?  Fuck everyone else, they don't matter.  Do you like it? - because it's your canvas, it will never be anyone else's, you are you and no one can ever take that away from you, don't let anyone else tell you what to paint, and above all else don't let anyone else do it for you.