by Ascen Arriazu

Created on: September 28, 2008   Last Updated: October 05, 2008

A child is born naked, with nothing in his/her hands, and still full of potential for getting whatever he or she wants to achieve. From her cot the baby's eyes look curious around the room and her mind is a sponge ready absorve every single detail of her new exciting life.

After the first days, babies start becoming the dream of their parents, everything is prepared for them to follow the paths that others will mark. But few people really understand the negative effect that society have in those tiny brains from their very first months of life. We expose them to unnatural lights, to strong noises, to the sight of things that scare them and we, who are supose to protect them, manipulate their, until then peaceful and quiet existence, and make them follow our steps in this crazy society we all live in today.

How can we know if a child is good at poetry or other form of art if we don't give them the apropriate conditions for developing their innate abilities in freedom? Everybody has an artist inside, yes we do! Whether it is in literature, painting, music, singing, crafts... it doesn't matter but every single human being has inside the capacity to grow in self confidence and to develope their own individual ideas. It is society and the social needs for integration which allieniate those inner capacities. How can a child born in a poor family be able to learn some day if he is good at composing music if we don't give him the chance to touch and play an instrument, for example?

But maybe the discussion is more about what should be considered art? Is it something we learn or the manifestation of our spirit and our inner needs to express ourselves, to share with the world our feelings, worries and desires?

It is about becoming one with nature, with the rest of the universe, in that spiritual peace that we all search for in one way or another. Looking at a child drawing circles on the sand with a stick, you can see the painter in him, a girl playing with daugh and giving it recognisable shapes shows you her inner sculptress, even the poor man who daydreams at work while completing his monotonous tasks, hides the writer that could have been, if he had received the right guidance. The question is not about whether we are all artists or not, but about why we are not facilitated with the right conditions to develope the ability that suited us best.

Art is lost in the way, only some counted priviledge souls get to the top while the majority of us get locked in a life of false safety and vulgarity. The only difference between a Picasso and the child next door is that the first one had the right environment and the right encouragement to fulfill his ambitions and the second one will pass life through an eventless route and without discovering what the artist's life could have been.

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