Coloring Outside the Lines.

“The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure, while always arriving"
–from Waking Life, a film on philosophy

Back when I was small, I used to follow what my teacher tells me, to strike the crayon lightly and accurately on the smooth surface of the papier, chasing dutifully the outlines of whatever it is illustrated and making sure that not even a single hue smudges beyond those fine lines.

I grew up practically the same, seeing things in black and white. There is nothing in between. It is either I color within the lines and get an incentive or I color outside the lines and fail. Of course, I unhesitatingly chose the former.

Unconsciously, it gradually taught me to become a compulsive perfectionist, in the most literal sense of the term. I began to see that the exquisite lies in the perfection of each minute detail. I began to perceive that the magnificent is substantiated by the absence of even a microscopic mistake.

Concomitantly, I became fearful when perfection elusively looms around rather than structurally substantiated. Fear becomes the abysmal entity that encapsulated my precarious being, causing me to become diffident, partially unaware of my relative strengths. Fear is that paralytic rhythm that incrementally impeded my becoming.

Until recently, I found out that I have allowed restrictions to restrict myself and to direct the trajectory of my life. I boxed and locked myself inside a cavernous space of rigid conformity and unrelenting conventionality, out of trying to become perfect, out of fear and out of what is taught to me –– to keep the color within the lines.

Until recently, I unintentionally stumbled upon the idea that it is okay to color outside the lines as long as it is handled with utmost responsibility. Perhaps, the realization was the end point of an entrenched pessimism and languid reluctance that has been ingrained within me. Or perhaps, it suddenly dawned on me that I am human, and part of “human-ness” is to err, at times though not at all times. Or perhaps, it stemmed from the disappointment I have gotten from the kind of system I thrive in –– what it says are not always true, reliable, and relevant.

To see life in black and white is like seeing it from the eye of a deeply conceited, supercilious chauvinist; while to see it as freely flowing and randomly varied, and at times void of explanation and meaning, is to envision it from an open, cogent mind.

Life is a fleeting moment, of transition and of emancipation. It coherently resembles a state of constant fluidity and influx that each moment demands to be seized receptively without undue boundaries, and with relativity. I am not pre-determined, evident in the fact that I am left with choice to direct my life, and re-direct it in case of mishaps.

Coloring outside the lines isn't bad after all, like what I used to think.