How well I remembered my father complimenting me on my drawing skills at the age of 5 by telling me that the most famous artist of them all could not draw. "Look", my father pointed out; "Vincent needs a grid to actually get the right proportions and dimensions done". To make things worse he pointed out the fact that the lunatic cut off his ear. I can tell you, with a father high on a pedestal at that age, this information sticks. It was only in my early twenties that I could get rid of the perception that Vincent was a screw up. And it's just now in my late thirties that I realize what an impact this kind of information had on me as a child growing up.
I could easily blame my parents for my ignorance, but actually it was me who programmed these short cuts most of the time. Like when I acquired the knowledge that I would never study art, not in a million years, the moment I saw the father of one of my classmates somewhere around the age of ten. The man, an artist and actually a good one, wore a beard of the size of a leprechaun. I made the agreement with myself never to become like that. Like what? Like becoming myself, not minding what other people think?
The fact that people like to flock in herds make them want to blend in, hide behind the crowd. It takes knowledge, intelligence and guts to break this pattern. And it's the lack of the latter that I just bought me a nice new pair of trousers, color purple, because that's color of this winter's collection. Although.., some guts is needed to wear purple pants.