Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
- da Vinci

As one "grows up" and gets older, they are expected to loose their childish ways. Expected to act more controlled, more thoughtfully... Well at least thats what people tell me. I however fail to see the reasoning behing this. The mind of a child is something beyond compare, so pure, so innocent. Full of fun, full of dreams. Picasso once said "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." Every child is an artist. They can be because they sren't affraid that theiir work is not good enough. This is what is lost. that feeling that everything they do is great, without care or worry about what others might think. Why is it so hard for so many people to retain this childhood innocence? I say it is Fear. Fear that one will not be accepted into society if they retain there childish ways. Fear that one will be ridiculed. Fear of not being good enough.

I have always tried to retain as much of the child in me as I can. not only in my art, but in my everyday life. However it is not easy. Life changes. You change. I have been ridiculed by people who do not understand the way I feel. I try to always smile, always laugh, always joke. I have an energy that races through me. A spark, a flame of life that in most people has long died out. How much longer will it last? I do not know. Hopefully until I am 'old' and grey. I do not know what the future holds for me, but I know that as long as I am alive, I will continue to be joyful, and will continue to try and bring joy into the lives of others, if it it means a joke at my expence.

To end, some quotes from a great mind, a mind that though as a child, Picasso:

"What might be taken for a precocious genius is the genius of childhood. When the child grows up, it disappears without a trace. It may happen that this boy will become a real painter some day, or even a great painter. But then he will have to begin everything again, from zero. "
“We don't grow older, we grow riper”
“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child”
"Youth has no age."
-Picasso