Blending Colours

Once I took up painting while in a course that exposed the class to the whole range of  art from the colour wheel to the intricacies of oriental brush use. I found the colour part, while fascinating in the range of its variety, the least inspirational. I had assumed that our special breed of  artists was filled with the creative angst and easily, instinctively slapped on gobs of paint and everything worked out from there. It wasn't that simple. There were methods of application, construction of materials, rules of design, costs and time involved. There was mixing and cleaning and a general mess to contend with that went along with all the esoteric matters of creative endeavors. At that point, I gave up, and swung my course load over to Literature. It was much easier to read someone else's hard work and dabble at my own word efforts than with sticky, icky paint. Which brings me to the point I am trying to ponder. We as a global society are in the age of colour,  mostly to do with skin colour. What the colour of someone's skin has to do with so much is mystifying but that's the way we humans are today. If someone has skin that is unusual in their surroundings, the first question is "where are you from".  They can be from down the street or across the world but why does it matter enough to ask? It is because we are currently embroiled in the aspect of colour. No longer can we sit smugly in our little colour pod whatever that might be, and say to ourselves that it is our world. It is what it has always been, everyone on the planet's world, only we weren't so close to seeing skin colours in all of their true human glory, as we are now. We can be anywhere on the globe in a matter of hours and the fondest wish of anyone I know or have heard of, is to see the world. If we want to see the world, we have to live in it and that means being part of its wondrous variety much like the possibility of an artist's easel that can see colours mix and blend into amazing numbers and kinds. Humans who are uncomfortable with skin colour are natural effects of a changing world, one that doesn't have hard lines any more in anything, but those that are slowly coming together in exciting ways. To some, colour is spiritual and to others, it's societal or historical or cultural but it doesn't change the one fact that we are all human creatures together on one earth. One day, the way we are going, we will get it, but for now, we are in a great struggle not really about technology, but because our sciences are forcing us to accommodate all humans no matter what their differences. And it's not easy. It should be since we all have the same stuff under our skins. But Technology is forcing us to make it a start if we would just allow it. Like giving up Art because it was too hard, and now regretting it, I hope we don't give up on each other. We need to stick together as human beings and learn that all our varieties and differences are age old and natural and then finally find ourselves. Earth, all that we have, is our easel and it's waiting.