I made some discoveries about colors
recently. It kind of freaks me out a little.
A few years ago, when we first bought
our home, we were in the process of making it ours. One aspect of that process
was painting. A sub-category of painting is choosing the colors.
The concept of color selection has
taken on a whole new meaning for me since we started perusing the countless
color swatches at the home improvement stores. To put this in perspective
I need you to understand that I grew up with the primary color range that I
used to identify every color. It didn’t matter if it was light green or
dark green, it was just green to me. Then Crayola came out with the BIG
box of 64 crayons with the built-in sharpener and I was overwhelmed. To
top it all off they changed the names of the colors!!
Blue was blueberry, red was
strawberry, and yellow was lemon, and I became convinced that they were edible
since fruit was the major theme in the naming convention. I’d heard of
kids eating crayons before, and I think this is how it started. I’m
willing to bet when they changed “flesh” to “peach” the child Hannibal Lecter
was pretty upset.
Then they started mixing them and I
was exposed to “taupe”, and “mauve”, and others that I couldn’t describe
because I was too much of a purist to understand the concept! I was just
trying to stay in the lines!! Why did I have to coordinate?!
I remember an incident as a child
when my family was going to Las Vegas to visit my godparents. I had a
plastic container of about 20 crayons which I put on the rear
dashboard.
Inside the window.
As we drove through the desert.
Now crayons, being wax, have certain well-defined
shapes when they are kept in the proper environment. This was a
questionable environment for crayons.
As we drove through the Nevada desert
with the sun beating down on the rear window, as though Lucifer’s eyeball was
having a staring contest with our car, I got bored. I got out my coloring
book and reached for the container of crayons.
In a word it was “psychedelic”.
All the crayons had melted and mixed together! This was the 60’s and the
term “psychedelic” had a very particular meaning for some people then, but this
was the first time I was able to apply it to any situation that occurred in my
world. I think it was about this time that when people asked me what I
wanted to be when I grew up, I started saying, “I want to be a hippy!” My
dad didn’t seem pleased.
Now I’m finding out things about
colors that never occurred to me. We wanted the walls in our new home to
be a certain color, and have one wall another color as an accent. I knew
about, and understood, this concept, but had never really done anything with it
in the past.
Off we went to the hardware emporium
of the world to get the samples we needed. First, you stop at the “Walls
of Colors”. There are little paper swatches of colors, and then there are
bigger swatches with multiple colors, and then there are little booklets that
show different color combinations, and then there are even BIGGER booklets with
pages of little color boxes that show you the whole range of colors! And of
course, each paint manufacturer has a wall all to themselves, AND they rename
all the same colors to something different because of course they can’t match
the same color name as their competitor, can they?! I bet there’s
actually a department in each company devoted to coming up with color
names! And I’ll also bet they hired them from the crayon company!
Once we found a suitable collection
of choices, we went to the counter to have samples made. “Sample” is a
word that has very different meanings depending on the product in
question. I was looking at countertops several years ago at a
stonecutter’s shop and he asked if I needed samples. When I said yes, he
went over to this huge slab of granite and broke a piece off! Paint
samples are a small jar of paint that could probably cover half a wall!
So anyway, we take the samples home and start painting different colored
squares on various walls.
My wife has a very well-developed
skill in decorating. When she says something will look good I have long
since ceased to question her choices no matter how weird they may sound to
me. It always works no matter what she does. I don’t really
understand it, but I really don’t have to understand it because I trust her
implicitly since she hasn’t tried to dress me in funny clothes. Not yet
anyway.
She painted a color that seemed like
“white” to me on the wall. The wall she painted it on looked “white” as
well. Until she painted the sample on it. Now the white wall looked
“more white”. Then she painted some of the sample paint on the darker
accent wall and the “white” sample looked yellow!!!
“Hey! Now it’s yellow!” I
cried in amazement.
“No, it's still white. You just
see it as yellow next to the other color. It’s all about perception
honey.” She replied.
Then she put other samples on other
walls and they looked different because of the way the light hit them at
different times of the day!
Consider my mind blown.
But now I, being me, couldn’t just
leave it alone. I started applying it to myself.
I started to wonder how my life is
perceived in relation to my environment. (Stop with the metaphors!!
Stop it now!) I can’t help it. Sorry. (I often argue with myself in
my head. It’s the only place where I always win.)
Anyway, I started to look at myself
in a different way. I began to wonder what I look like or how I am
perceived by other people. If I’m always the “real me” in different
environments then I will sometimes provide a contrast to my surroundings.
If I become a people pleaser then no one sees me any differently because I
change to match everyone else’s viewpoint. I become a chameleon.
The problems with this are
legion.
Eventually I wind up lying to someone
about who I am. Maybe not straight out lying, but often by agreeing with
someone just so they feel good about me even though I may actually oppose their
view is actually a lie. The real kicker here is that while I want to be
everyone’s friend, I am assuming that to be their friend we must agree on
everything, but true friendship needs to be based on truth, so by falsely
agreeing with someone I become a false friend. I have dishonored that
person by allowing them to become friends with a mask I wore.
It usually begins with an effort to
avoid conflict. In my desire to create a friendship I neglect my need to
be myself rather than being myself to satisfy my need for friendship. I
can’t be a true friend unless I can do it honestly. That means that I
can’t always be someone’s friend if they require my constant agreement.
I discovered some time ago that
“agreement” and “understanding” are not interchangeable concepts.
There is no way to be a true friend
by always agreeing with everyone. Others have to be able to know who I
really am, if I’m going to be their friend.
Sometimes, when I tell someone about
the events of my life, they respond emotionally and say something like, “You’re
such a good man!” or “You’re so strong now!” or some other praise. I
often hesitate to say anything anymore because I don’t want people to think I’m
saying it as some kind of proof of my stalwartness or something. The
honest fact of the matter is that I’m just a guy who this stuff happened
to. I’m not special for it, or better than anyone else, just because it
happened to me. I don’t have any greater authority than I ever did
before. What I do have is experience in survival, which, while valuable,
still does not add to my intrinsic value as a person. I tried the whole
“bitterness and depression” thing, but I can tell you honestly that it didn’t
give me anything good. It took years to claw my way out of that
pit. No, the only qualities I have in anyone else’s life are whatever
that person perceives me to have for themselves. I can only be myself,
but what they do with it is up to them.
My real value does not change, like
colors, based on someone else’s perspective. I have chosen to acknowledge
the authority of my Creator, and listen to Him express His opinion of my
worth. His opinion of me never changes, regardless of what I do or the
situation I get myself into. I daily fail to live up to His standards of
me in some way, but He never stops loving me nor does my value in His eyes
decrease. Unlike the patches of color on our walls, that seemed to change
in different light, He sees me the same all the time regardless of any mask I
wear.
When I start to acknowledge and
appreciate His love for me, I am forced to examine my life to see if I’m
treating others the same way He treats me. I have discovered too many
moments where His love for me is not reflected in my treatment of others at
all. I now realize that we all have the ability to care for other people
and still be ourselves, but we have to make the choice to exercise that
ability.
So, I’m making that choice. I
choose to seek in you what there is to love, and not to hate.
What you do with that is up to you.
©Dan Bode 2022
