Living like Harold & the Purple Crayon

When you sit down to write a story or an essay; when you begin work on a piece of art; when you begin to fully step into your life – you often have a blank canvas. What is in front of us does not exist yet until we put it down. The movement and laying down of each word, each line, each stroke, each tightening of the screw, each decision, is the necessary development for something to be created. While we have ideas and visions of what is to come, we can never truly know until we begin. It is at this forward-leaning line of existence that who we are is always coming into being.

One book I enjoy reading to my children is Harold and the Purple Crayon. I find this book to be a great testament to living life with freedom and creativity. Harold is curious and imaginative. He draws what intuitively comes next based on his current predicament. He does not stop and stand and analyze. He moves forward into the blank page with simple, bold lines of creative story. Kierkegaard would be proud of Harold’s ability to take on the realm of possibility. The courage to be lies in our ability to respond to life with such creativity. This creativity comes out of curiosity, imagination and commitment to falling forward into the unknown.
It seems that when life is lived well, it is lived similar to how Harold responds to his own imagination. There are certainly times for reflection in real life, but the fruit of existence lies in how we stay close to the edge of our own personal “crayon.” Fear reigns supreme for us adults but we must tap into the awe and desire of a child so that we may rush up to the very tip of our crayon, awaiting what will come next.

Photo: Thinkstock.com

I can often struggle with starting an essay because I want to know exactly where I am going. I had ideas about this essay and because of that, my fears began to get in the way as I wanted to start. I saw how I wanted it to be and was afraid I wouldn’t create it exactly. But like Kierkegaard helps us to understand, we must also live in the world of necessity, which is the here and now aspect of putting ideas into practice. If we are stuck in the realm of possibility, then we usually stay stuck. At some point we have to live our lives. At some point we just have to get out of bed. At some point I must just start the essay and as I type each word something will arise. It’s never exactly as I pictured. Sometimes it's better, sometimes it’s worse. But at least it exists.

This is also how self-development occurs. We must make choices around how to bring the possibilities of our potential into the here and now. We usually have lots of excuses around why we shouldn’t begin yet. It’s never perfect right away. I’m sure if Harold knew how his choices would impact his predicament ahead of time, he would make different choices, but he doesn’t. He just has to draw. So do we. It is moving through the very edge of our story that we develop a self. You could also say that it is moving through the very edge of our story that we build an authentic relationship to our self.

What is the biggest obstacle to developing a self in this way? An old and tired self that we usually created to protect ourselves from what looked like a dangerous world. We also constructed a self based on parental and societal expectations. When we are stuck perpetuating dysfunctional patterns in our lives, it pretty much means a false self needs to die. Continuing to run into the same walls of fear and shame means that who you thought you were must die in order for a more authentic, courageous and free self to emerge.

Often times, the pain of our lives is the process of healthy ego death. Ego in the sense of who we constructed for the world to accept. Our authentic self wants to exist fully of its own accord, regardless of what the outside world thinks. When we continue to lean backwards because of fear, and when we continue to stay paralyzed because of the unknown in front of us, we continue to live through a self that isn’t ours, that is useless to us, and that needs to die.

When this old self dies, we begin to live life like Harold. When we live life like Harold, we are continuously coming into being, and it is this continual coming into being that builds self or relationship to self. It is also when we lose a focus on self, for when you are busy at the edge of your life, you will think much less of your self, and more of the world with which you are engaging. Just as a writer, a painter, and a cabinet maker will get lost in their work, creating something out of nothing, we too must get lost in full engagement with our lives to continue evolving as a person.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.