I’m not suggesting we all need to paint the next Mona Lisa, but I have been thinking about how we decide what we’re allowed to be. Or perhaps how early we decide, and how rarely we question it afterwards.
I call myself an artist, and mostly that means I paint paintings. But I also want to paint furniture and walls. I want to write things down and see whether they mean something to someone else. Sometimes an idea belongs in a frame; sometimes it belongs all over the chimney breast. To me, those things feel connected. I’m a creative person getting creative. Yet I still catch myself wondering whether I ought to narrow it down. Pick a thing. Make it easier to explain.
Easier for whom, exactly?
Leonardo da Vinci seems to have had rather less trouble following his curiosity. Painting, anatomy, plants, ideas for flying machines. I love the thought of being interested enough in something to explore it without first asking whether it fits your job description. Why can’t we be interested in ten things? Why do we feel we have to earn the right to try the next one?
I’m particularly interested in this now, in my forties. There are things I want to make and try, and I’m becoming less keen on putting them off until some future version of me feels qualified enough.
That version of me could keep us waiting for years.
There’s usually a very convincing reason to postpone something. Time. Money. Being tired. The possibility of being terrible at it. Some of those are real practical barriers, and I don’t think they disappear because someone on the internet tells you to follow your dreams.
But mixed in with them, certainly for me, is the worry about what other people might think.
Will it look silly? Will anyone be interested? What if I change direction and then change my mind again? I’m trying to give those questions a little less say in things.
Instead, I’m asking what I actually feel drawn towards. What do I keep making a mental note to try? What would I happily spend an afternoon doing, even if there were nothing impressive to show for it afterwards? Sometimes the answer is surprisingly small. Painting a piece of furniture. Writing a few paragraphs. Trying an idea I’ve been carrying around for months. I like the thought that something done in your spare time might eventually become a bigger part of your life. Perhaps even your work. There’s no guarantee, of course, but there’s a possibility you never get to explore if you keep talking yourself out of beginning.
FYI - it’s allowed to stay as something you simply enjoy. That seems a good enough reason to me.
So perhaps “Why can’t you be Leonardo da Vinci?” is a slightly grand way of saying I’d like to follow my curiosity more often.
I haven’t got a flying machine planned. But I do have paintings to make, things to write and a house with a diminishing number of unpainted surfaces.
That should keep me going for a while.