“Art consists in drawing the line somewhere.” G.K. Chesterton
Question: What makes golf a fun game? Answer: The rules. That and, in my case, the occasional lucky shot. When you know the boundaries of a game, you can spend your energy and enthusiasm within those boundaries. There is a kind of freedom only possible inside a strong gate.
This line of thinking is almost a thought crime these days, but I proceed, thinking like a criminal who has come to appreciate a well-built border.
At some point it became a cliche of creativity to advocate “coloring outside the lines.” I have a small concern about that and it involves the fact that those pictures are usually horrible.
I say “usually,” and not “always,” on purpose.
Obviously there is something to the desire to be unbounded, at liberty, and it’s certainly not all bad. Some conventions are simply prisons, and crummy ones. But the old saying, “Don’t remove a fence until you know why it was put there,” is apt. I’m not saying that we should never buck convention, or that we should always follow every norm. (In fact, rebellion is so conventional now that returning to the ordinate virtues of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness is the real rebellion.) But I am saying we should perhaps be slower to insist on our own way, our own, individual interpretation of a thing. We should, perhaps, be slower to assert our own wills in every area of life: including areas of creativity.
A ruthless commitment to artistic self-expression can be, along with other dangers, incredibly tedious.
I hear people talk about how terrible “organized religion” is, but all I can think about is how much worse self-absorbed, disorganized religion is. The man who avoids church, but instead goes into the woods to worship, is probably worshipping the one and only member of Woods Church.
So often the thing I most need liberation from is my own way. The elevation of My Own Way to creedal status in modern life is an elaborate invitation to a Cyanide Banquet.
It is, I will argue, a tremendous virtue to teach our children to color inside the lines. This is because we want our children to be free. They cannot be free and self-worshipping at once.
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Featured Image by Paul Boekell
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Great article, Sam. I agree with all your wisdom but I’ve been known to color outside the lines a few times. Just a bit of my inner rebel shining through. 🙂
Thanks, Brenda. Keep it cool, lady!
As usual, wisdom trumps convention — whichever convention happens to be in vogue at the time.
Word.
Sometimes the lines are drawn by poor artists and need to be reshaped. Often I was the original artist, and sometimes not. No matter who was responsible for it, the inadequate structure we’ve created, or inherited, doesn’t give us license to then color wherever we see fit.
Good point, actor Will Smith.
I think this is a needed discussion. I believe kids need to be taught the time and place for coloring “inside” or “outside,” and it’s a good reminder for adults as well. Boundaries protect, guide, encourage, etc., and they are important for children. I think coming to see and respect those boundaries then gives us an opening for conversations as children get older about when it is appropriate to challenge what is, and when to recognize that even the lines we do not like may protect us from harm. Thank you!
Well said, Beth Homes. That’s some good nuance.
As the guy said, you have to know the rules before you can break them.
Wow. Amazing.
Nicely put, S. D.
Thanks, pal!