12/12: Some Thoughtful Musings & Introspections

”Some people want to take well-travelled paths, others prefer the less travelled ones; and there are few who are devoted in trying to create new paths instead. The likes of us, who belong to the third group, believe that the only way to create peaceful co-existence around the world is to connect people and make each person understand what individual differences is all about and for each to respect other person‘s uniqueness. I am happiest working on stuff related to that– ‘trying to look for strategic social spaces wherein a new path can be created with the hope that someday, it will get connected to the previously created paths’– and just maybe, our vision of “worldpeace” might become a reality.” – Leofina Jane G. Galleta, 12/12/2011

—oOo—

As early as five years of age, I’ve already known that I won’t ever be able to be great in drawing, painting, sketching, and the likes. And so, it happened that Art was one of my least favorite subjects ever, simply because I knew I didn’t have the natural talent to illustrate good pictures and images.

Let me share this one incident that happened when i was just a kid.

One time, I was trying so hard to draw a coin, Crumpled papers slowly began to mount beside me because I just can’t seem to ‘copy’ the image in a satisfactory manner. I can still remember that feeling of frustration I felt.

My grandfather showed me another way of doing it. He put the coin beneath the paper, and slowly he traced the image using the pencil lead… and bingo! The result was a replica of the coin! Wasn’t that great!:-) I was amazed, but I remember telling my grandfather that he didn’t deserve any applause from me because he simply traced the whole thing–he was just instrumental with the output. Without the lead pencil, he shouldn’t have been able to copy the image of the coin perfectly.

I cannot forget that nod of approval I got from him as a response to my reasoning. That was one of the most cherished moments I had with my Tatang Itok.

This anecdotal recollection has been heavily connected with the grains of thought I shared in the very beginning of this blog post. Because of the way he treated me as a child, I developed that strong desire of discovery, of challenging the existent norm, of not being content to be just a follower but to use my God-given capabilities instead to try to look for ‘alternatives’ – to do things quite differently. And that learning has made all the difference.

©12December2011leofinajanegalleta

Note: This blog post was derived from a conversation in my goggle+ account.

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