Color By Numbers

Nothing makes me so happy as to observe nature and to paint what I see.
- Henri Rousseau

 

When I was a sophomore in college, I worked as a summer development student at an engineering firm in Dallas, 200 miles from Austin. My Mother and I exchanged letters (@ one letter every two weeks). I'd considered majoring in English, and considered myself a clever "wag". My Mother's letters read more like this:

"I took out the trash. I took the dog to the vet. I went to the hair salon".

Her letters kept me informed and yet, they lacked that spark of originality. Wasn't really expecting the wit of Voltaire or the bite of Nathan Lane, and yet I found myself wanting more color in the correspondence. Flash forward to 2005, and I see the same thing everywhere:
"How 'bout them Cowboys?" "Think it's gonna rain?" "What's goin' on with the stock prices?"

People who even know each other well stay in the territory of the mundane - business news, weather and sports. Part of it is propriety - don't talk about sex, religion and politics in mixed company. Part of it is conformity - "I might be too revealing if I talk about something important to me". Men especially have a fear of florid speech, a fear of seeming gay, religiously fanatical, or otherwise extreme. In a world that seems to reward bland and poker-faced conformity, maybe they have a point. And thus, we all start to sound like voice mail messages, or robots programmed by a sloganeer for Hallmark cards. What does it take for someone like my Mother, to break out of the mold, to tell it like it is? In my Mother's case, she is very intelligent and has a rich sense of humor. It just takes a familiar, informal setting with her peers and maybe a few cocktails to let her witty self emerge. Others, I'm not so sure. Maybe they speak in monosyllables because that's all they know to do? A Hallmark slogan is all they really have to offer? Let's hope not.

When I worked at TI, my weeklies to my boss were filled with mirth and wit. I wrote in paragraphs, not bullets. My boss was a man of few surprises, and limited imagination. He didn't appreciate my clever asides. My female coworker wrote weeklies in a very muted, bulleted style: "I debugged the Accounts payable program. I modified the Inventory history report". My boss loved this woman and promoted her. Clearly I was working in the wrong venue; or maybe it was just about sex. (He was a bit of a nerd and she was pretty). But I digress. To everyone out there reading this: Color by numbers is dismally dull. Show the world that you aren't timid, and you do have some imagination. Yes there are boundaries and appropriate settings. And yet... There has to be some setting where, dam the torpedoes, you're going to say "it". And it might not be pretty, poetic or expertly thought out, but "it" is more than a Hallmark slogan and it says something about you. And thus, the spirit has prevailed. You, a conversational artist in your own right, are now painting your own picture. No more color by numbers.