The ambiguity of charisma.
Thoughts of a quarantine era.
The last year is so surreal and real at the same time for everyone. Lockdowns after lockdowns, restrictions in moving, in meetings, in entertainment, in … made us all to get angry, mad, worried for our social future and not only.
All these restrictions, made me think that I should do something new, something that I will enjoy, something that will help me to get along the lockdown without getting crazy. I decided to learn to paint, acrylic painting in canvas it was something I always wanted to do, but always had excuses to avoid it. The lack of time, the lack of space etc. But now it was the time, worst case it will be a failure, so what?… I just want to occupy my time with something creative, I am not planning to become an artist -I thought.
So that was how it happened, few days before the second lockdown was posed, I bought myself many canvas, acrylic colours and brushes. I definitely had the time and no excuses to start it.
It was not a lot more than few days of the quarantine that I found myself completely lost in colours, brushes and youtube videos. It was just a button -well hidden on my body- that I suddenly pressed and I couldn’t stop painting. I was astonished by the energy I got, the inspiration and the happiness that this new activity filled me up with. And I was wondering, how did I know, that I am gonna like it and that probably I will be good at -or at least I hoped.
I started easy, following youtube tutorials, trying to imitate everything et voilà … my first painting was created after couple of hours.
I thought … wait a second, this is actually good, there must be talent here. But most importantly, I found myself completely lost while painting, a feeling that I experience only when I am really enjoying an activity, and undoubtedly I enjoyed it a lot.
It became my new habit, all the week I was looking forward to the weekend to come and start a new painting. And I found myself impressed by my 'talent' and dedication to it.
But is it just talent, or better is talent or charisma the full story? If this holds true, my talent was locked well enough in the basement for many years until I found the motivation.
As the weeks passed, I wanted to challenge myself with the painting that requires not just talent but some math. Geometry was one of my favourite subjects at school and Escher is one of my favourite painters. So my goal was to do a tessellation painting based on his work. This was definitely the painting where I spent the most days so far. Figuring out the geometry, drawing circles and lines, paint them again and again and at the end trying to add a personal touch. I was really happy with the result and honestly it was a time I felt proud of myself.
I know it is far from being perfect, but it does not matter, in any case perfection is not always the key. I love how many symmetries the painting has.
Everything in life, except talent/skills requires luck to some extent. The luck in my situation was definitely -due to the unlike situation of the lockdown- that I had more free time to invest on a new hobby. Moreover, it is much easier nowadays with the internet, to access almost everything and to learn a new skill by following videos, blogs, articles etc. If as a kid I had the same access, my introvert young self would have learned and try much more without being discouraged by the judgements.
There is something more than just talent to almost everything we do. Think about something you tried to do that you were good at but you had no motivation for it. Did you succeed? On the contrary, think about something that you did not have a talent but you really wanted to learn and you were motivated to try more and more. Wasn’t it more successful?
In science for example, the charisma is translated as ‘genius’, do you think that every scientist is a genius, no absolutely not, but is this curiosity and motivation to learn, to discover and to explain phenomenas that make them so good and clever at their field that may look genius. And maybe you can actually achieve this. Unquestionably, it will be amazing to have both -talent and motivation, but talent itself — sad as it sounds, not always lead you to the top.
I am thankful to the time I had and the push from my family to try it. I am still a learner, and I hope I will always be one. But something that I definitely learned is that motivation, is a deeper force than talent, and makes us do everything we desire, being or not talented on it.
There is nothing that you cannot learn from scratch, as long as you have the motivation.
