~ A Templesmith inspired meander…

On the hive-brain that is Twitter I once asked Ben Templesmith this:

Out of curiousity… I love your style but squirm at the subject,

have you ever drawn, say, a kitten? (Without tentacles?)

And his response was:

Nope, I don’t draw nice things generally. It’s the bad stuff

that happens in life that defines us after all, not the banal/cutesy

While I really appreciate his taking time to respond, and the limited space of Twitter… I disagreed:

Really? Only the bad stuff that defines us?

I can understand not banal/cutesy, but ruling out good/beautiful/happy as defining?

And that’s where this post comes in, I’ll not get into the argument that kittens are not necessarily merely banal/cutesy, though they can be, but I will present another perspective.

Both kinds of life experiences define us.

Its too often that I’ve come across people who feel that they are shaped primarily by the bad stuff in their life. Yes, that has an effect on who you are and how you interact with the world, but so do events like winning awards, having children, getting happily married and living past your golden wedding anniversary together, and on a smaller level, even experiencing a beautiful sunset can set the tone for an evening, a night, or a whole week.

When we can be defined by both the joy and the sorrow in our hearts, why only settle for one half of the equation?