 “Who are you?” “Who? Me? Who am I? Why, I am the man who was five times elected the mayor of Podunk. That’s who I am.” “And who are you?" I asked a rather ragged looking woman. “Oh, I am the wash-lady,” she answers. “I am a sales-girl in the big department store across the street,” says another. I asked a little child, “Who are you?” and it answered, “Who am I? Why, why, I’m just me.” “Well, but what is me?” And he looks puzzled, and up and down, and gives it up. But he is sure he is me and nobody else. The five-times elected man has crystallized into a mayor; the woman who does washing has crystallized as a washing machine; the sales-girl has settled into a mere part of the great selling-machine across the street. Only the child knows that me is undefined, undefinable, unconfined, limitless. But he doesn’t know that he knows it. Consequently as he grows up he becomes so interested in what he has done that he thinks it is himself. He has grown legs and arms, a teacupful of brains, a little knowledge and a reputation, and when you ask him who he is, he thinks of himself as a mixture of legs, arms, brains, doings and reputation. He is limited in his own estimation by what he has done. He remembers it all. Every time he says “I” he sees a panorama of things he has done, or has failed to do. He is little or great, a failure or a success, according to his depreciation or appreciation of what he has done. The child has forgotten his past. When he says “I” he defines nothing. He sees simply a rosy nebulous mist ‘out of which worlds and other wonders may be formed. There is to him nothing formed and fixed. He is a glorious and untrammeled Reality and all things are possible. He is full of the joy of power and prospect. “Of such is the kingdom of heaven,” and “except you become as a little child” you shall remain forever imprisoned by what you have done and left undone. This kind of prison is hell, where one grows not “in wisdom and in knowledge,” but in hate— hate for himself and his “life.” And his prison walls keep pressing in and in, and by and by they are simply the walls of a coffin. And it is all so needless. One only needs to forget, to be again a child in the rosy mist of glorious possibilities. Forgetting is so easy, too. It is only a matter of displacing one picture with another, just as one paints a new picture right over the old one on a canvas. As the new one appears the old one vanishes. Ah, it is easier than that. Memory is just the original stereopticon show, where the old picture fades as the new appears. Change the slide and presto the old has vanished from view. Keep on slipping in new slides and by and by the old one will find its way into the ash barrel and the ash barrel will be dumped into the bottomless pit of oblivion. Oh, it is easy to forget by putting in new slides. It is our memories which limit us. If we didn’t die once in a while and forget, we would surely curl up into something too insignificant to mention. As long as we persist in piling up our doings and misdoings in a great burden of memories we shall continue to be borne down by them to earth and the grave. As long as we clutter up “memory’s walls” with back-number pictures of ourselves and our powers we shall need to call in Death, the Junk Man, to renovate for us. But we are learning—by and by we will get waked up to the desirability of keeping “memory’s walls” freshly decorated with new and up-to-date conceptions. This thing of hanging on to old things simply because they are old is not only silly but it is death-dealing. Our mental pictures are the source of our inspiration and power, or of our lack of inspiration and power, all according to the style of pictures we entertain. There is no power or inspiration or wisdom to be got out of things that are past. He who dwells upon fleeting things runs on with the water after it has passed the mill-wheel—on and on down the stream and out into the ocean, accomplishing nothing. The wise man stays by the mill and looks for more water to turn his wheel. If water fails he conjures steam or electricity—always something new. Always he looks ahead, not behind, for his power. Why don’t we do that? When all things are failing us why do we think of the time when we used to have water to turn our wheel? Why do we look down stream at the water that is past? What good will that water do us now? And does not the thinking of it simply fill us with despair and paralyze effort and common sense? Of course. There is plenty more power where that flying water came from. Look up stream, not down; and be ready. Your mental pictures are your ONLY source of power and wisdom. Your continued growth in wisdom and power depends upon your development as a mental artist. And that depends wholly upon quiet, wide-awake persistence. Have you held beautiful mental pictures and worked faithfully to put them on life’s canvas? And did you fail? Well, what of it? There is more canvas ready. You have learned by your mistakes. Now wipe off everything and take a NEW mental picture. Get away from the old one. Begin as if this were your very first attempt in all the world. Relax your physical efforts for a time. Get limp all over and let a new mental picture form. It will be a better work of art than the last one—it will be nearer true to principle. We learn to make true mental pictures by making them. We learn by every one we make, even though the picture itself is smashed. And by and by we learn to make such mental pictures as can be worked out without a mistake. Success lies all in keeping at it. Faith and work will accomplish anything you can picture mentally. When you cannot work a thing out just as you picture it, it is because you have not looked carefully enough at your picture. If an artist keeps his eyes too steadily fixed upon the canvas where he is working out his picture he never makes a good picture. He looks at his model, looks long and with joy. As he looks he sees something new. Then quickly, lightly, with as few motions as possible he reproduces what he saw in the model. If he is not satisfied with his reproduction he looks at his model again, and keeps looking until it comes to him, just how to get the effect he is after. Then a few more quick, light strokes and success is his. This is what the wise artist does. The foolish one keeps looking at the canvas, to see where the mistake lies; his eye is filled by his imperfect work. The wise artist fills his eye with the perfect model. The unwise artist, seeing only mistakes, is discouraged and incapacitated; while the wise artist feasts upon the perfections of his model, and is inspired to try, try again until he hits it just right. |
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