Edward E. Wilson

The creation of ourselves is a complicated business, built in layers over a lifetime. We are built as much by what happens to us as by how we interpret that, and how we choose to respond. As long as we live we are not done creating this unique work of art, this collaborative collage.

Sometimes we think this is something done to us, rather than something we do. Which is understandable as the process begins before we are capable of understanding our role in it.

Our interpretations of what happens to us, and why, were made by child-like minds with very little life experience. The choices we made were made with those same child-like minds with very little personal, economic, or social power. In short, we did the best we could with what we had in that moment.

The bad news is those early experiences, interpretations, and choices form the scaffolding for our later creative work. As a visual artist will tell you, an ink line or brushstroke laid down can’t be taken up again. And unlike them, we don’t have the option of scrapping the whole thing and starting over.

The choice we have now is how to work with what’s there.

And that’s the beginning of the good news, we have a choice about how we work with what’s there, because we are not done creating this particular work of art.

Our brains are far more sophisticated now than when we started. We have far more life experience to draw on. We can even draw on other people’s life experience through observation, through listening, and through reading. And most of us have many more options available to us and far more social and economic power than we had as children.

But most importantly, we can recognize our part in creating ourselves and take control over our interpretations and to choices. And not just our interpretations and choices about what’s happening now but also what happened in our past.

We can layer new interpretations over our old ones. We can make new choices. We can change what it all means, as long as we can accept the responsibility of being the artist AND the art.

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