Determination

Marc Friedlander

Determination - Rev Peter M. Preble

Natural talent is wonderful but determination is more important than talent. You can do anything, if you have enough determination. Don't worry about how long it takes - that's completely beside the point. It doesn’t matter how slow you go as long as you don’t stop.  When you’re in bumper to bumper traffic, and you think you’ll never get home, just remember if you’re going 1 mph or even slower, you’ll eventually get home.

Many people I know consider me talented. I paint, play classical guitar, write stories, and do - myriad other things. Actually I don't have any specific talent. I have determination. When I hear great guitarists, read great writing, see great paintings - I channel ny thoughts into that realm as closely as I can. I try to see what that artist saw - put myself in thir heads. And when I've done all that and then just evaluate my work critically, well, it's pretty good.

I never thought I had a smidgen of aptitude for artistic drawing or painting; technical drawing, yes (as a draftsman years ago). But every time I tried to just do a drawing - a person, or a scene I had in mind - I'd wind up tearing up the paper.

Several months ago, I decided (despite the fact that I’ve never shown much "talent" in this area) that I was going to do drawings and paintings. At this writing I'm 68 and never had an art lesson. Since then I’ve done 19 paintings that I didn’t tear up.  Instead I signed them and hung them.

I'm not a real painter. I'm pretending. But a lot of people don't know that. 
And if I pretend really really well, after some time, I won't know I'm pretending either.