George Washington Carver

"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong.  Because someday in life you will have been all of these."

— George Washington Carver

American Scientist

1864 - 1943

One of challenges we all face is accepting people who are different than ourselves.  And I am not talking here about race or culture or religon or nationality.  I'm talking about the little things that separate people.  Is there someone in your life who talks  too much or too little?  Are there people who you perceive to be stuck-up?  Do you dislikefat people or sloppy people?  Is there someone in your life who is too organized or too thin?  Do you think all poets are crazy and should get a real job?  Do you not like the way someone combs his hair or the clothes he wears?

As George Washington Carver points out, we are all human.  We have all been young and if we live long enough we will all grow old.  What people who complain about growing old don't realize is that the alternative is dying young.  Now the interesting idea in this quote is that we need to be tolerant of both the strong and the weak.  And it is easy to see being tolerant of the weak, but why the strong?  I think the reason we need to be tolerant of the strong is because they also make mistakes.  We have a tendency to put people on a pedestal and then knock them off.  We don't like it when our heroes are too perfect.  We prefer them to have clay feet so we can knock them down.

As writers, artists and actors, we sometimes put other actors, writers and artists on a pedestal and become disappointed when they don't live up to our expectations.  We need to become more accepting and tolerant of our peers, mentors and teachers.  We are all human and we all make mistakes.  The message is simple: judge not others.

Robert Frost

"A poem . . . begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. . . . It finds the thought and the thought finds the words."

Robert Frost

American Poet

1874 - 1963

Does your art grow out of your emotions?  How often does your pain find expression in your painting, your poem or your story?  Does your joy find the words to express itself?  Many times we forget the original emotion that triggered the thought that ultimately finds its expression in our art.  Some art begins in anger, some in love.  And if we paint or write well, our audience feels the emotion.  




Here is my favorite Frost poem.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim Because it was grassy and wanted wear, Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I marked the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Han Suyin

"There is nothing stronger in the world than gentleness."

— Han Suyin

Chinese novelist

1917 -

Are you gentle in your relationships with others or do you run over people with a Mack truck?  The myth about creative leaders is that they are temperamental and self-centered.  They abuse themselves and others.  I think true strength comes in being gentle with others and in being gentle with ourselves.  As artists and writers, we can be most abusive with ourselves.  Our art never lives up to our expectations.  The product is never as good as we saw it in our mind's eye.  We should learn to accept the gift that we have been given and not compare our work to that of other people.  We are not them.  We are each unique in the gift that we have been given.

Isaac Bashevis Singer

"Two important things are to have a genuine interest in people and to be kind to them.  Kindness, I've discovered, is everything in life."

— Isaac Bashevis Singer

Polish Novelist

1902 - 1991

Are you curious about people?  Are you interested in their stories?  Novelists and storytellers need to have a strong interest in people.  To tell a great story, a novelist has to understand people and their motives.  I think the same is true of a portrait artist?  In order to paint someone, an artist needs to see inside the person.  An artist is painting more than the surface.  An artist must paint the heart and soul of a person.  So again, my question:  Do you seek people out and listen to their stories?

The second part of this statement is even more important — being kind to others.  The world is in need of a lot of kindness today.  Kindness must start one person at a time.  I must first be kind before I can expect others to be kind.  Am I kind to those around me?  To family, friends and strangers on the street?  How should I demonstrate my kindness?  How do I show my caring?  Can you be kind without loving the person?  What is the demonstrable difference between love, caring and kindness?  Or are they cut from the same cloth?