Art is the courage to express

Art is the courage to express

​I had a long conversation with my son recently. He lives away from us in a dorm. He was talking about his anxiety before an important exam. I like talking to mature and open-minded people like my son. The topic of our conversation was 'courage'.

​Many people think about this before an exam. They regret not preparing earlier. They are afraid of doing poorly. They feel frustrated about how to respond when their grades are low. They hope that luck will work and they will get good grades. This is probably something that anyone would think about when they are about to take an important exam.

​But I remembered what my math teacher once said. "Tests are very trivial things in your life. Tests have answers, but your life will be full of things that have no answers and cannot be answered. So there will come a time when you will feel that tests are easier." But now I finally understand what my teacher meant.

​As we live, we feel confused and frustrated because there are so many things in life that have no answers. There must have been times when we wished someone would show us the way forward. That is why people try to divine their fate with frustrated feelings. However, if we know that there are no answers in life itself, the problem will become much easier and lighter.

​Think about it. The person who decided the answer and the person who completely believes it is the answer is me. If you just change the angle of your thinking, the problem will go in an easier direction. I used to go to a prestigious private high school. It was the school that the neighborhood was proud of, and my parents were very proud that I went to that school. However, I don’t remember being happy at that school. The teachers used to tell the students that if they got low grades and didn’t go to a good college, they would be losers. I felt very anxious when I heard this as a child. Looking back as time passed, everything was a lie. My teenage years went by like that, amidst countless gaslighting and deceptions. Do the teachers at that school feel ashamed of the fact that they said that? Or do they still believe it? Looking back, there was no guarantee that someone who was in a perfect environment would live a successful life. What is true success? There must be people like my high school teachers who live confidently in a twisted world that they created themselves.

The reason I like drawing is because there is no right answer. Of course, there are skills and techniques that you have to learn to draw, but whatever you choose to express yourself is not wrong. In fact, mistakes you make can become more wonderful expressions. When drawing, just hum along with a pure and innocent mind like a child.

In the midst of countless fears and anxieties in life, having 'courage' is easy to say but difficult to do. I practice 'courage' by learning how to create my own world and be satisfied in it while drawing. I wish the world were as easy as a painting, but if that's not possible, I wish I could trust myself and enjoy the way the paint spreads out like in front of a painting. In some ways, life and painting are the same. There is no right answer, and there are countless coincidences and mistakes that cannot be reversed. However, if I must draw, I hope to draw with the thought that the paintings I draw are the most beautiful in the world and that I am creating my own master piece in the world.

​And I think that's true courage.

Image by Elbert Wei