Coloring outside the lines

Clayton just finished an art piece, trying a different technique than what he usually uses. It has haunted me since he first showed it to me. In a good way. Finally this morning I realized what it was that was haunting me. The painting is clearly a man. But not a man as we are accustomed to seeing him. His colors are unnaturally bright. His skin tone unnaturally sharp. He doesn’t look like we expect him to look. But he’s beautiful all the same. And it struck me, as it often does, how Clayton sees things differently than many people do. He sees depth of color most people don’t. He sees levels of shadings most people can’t see. He sees things in a different way because of how his brain is wired and because of his background in art. How he sees things isn’t wrong because it’s not like most people’s. It’s just different.

And isn’t that true of all of us? Don’t all of us see things in a different way? Not wrong, just different. Different because our brains are wired differently. Different because of things that have happened in our past. Different because of our different backgrounds, our families, our realities. Not wrong. Just different.

Perhaps we should not just be more tolerant of the ways that other people see things in this world but celebrate the fact that our uniqueness gives each of us a different lens through which to see the world. And rather than judge the way another person sees things, perhaps we should ask them to show us how they see them. So that our perspectives might be broadened. So that we can see depths of color and beauty than maybe we’ve never seen before.