Smiling

  A short while back I decided to try carving a bit of stone. Well, grinding stone is more accurate. I purchased some carbide bits for my Dremel tool and had at it. Now I have no artistic talents as far as sculpting, painting or drawing so I decided on a simple design. I would grind out a hole in this rock to hold a tea candle. I then shaped two smaller stones to sit on that. Ringing the hole I had carved out with smaller stones the campfire was ready. It now sits by my computer and I occasionally light a candle in it. Whenever I do, it makes me smile. I can't say why it does, it just does. 

  Do you have anything like that? It doesn't have to be something you made yourself, just something that always makes you smile. I have a number of things like that gathered over the years. My great grandfathers clock makes me smile. Certain photographs make me smile. I guess it is memories that make those smiles, even when there is no memory associated with that object. Memories of what may have been. My little stone guys are smiling, so I smile. They have a look of anticipation on their faces. That's what I see anyway, and I am the artist, so that's it. The objective of an artist is for you to see what they see. As I said, I'm no artist and so I didn't try to do that, it just made me smile. You could say with the innocence of a child I created my sculpture. I did it only to please myself.

 It's something you hear often, the innocence of a child but I'm thinking it is more a lack of inhibitions. As we grow and mature we gain inhibitions. You could also call that restraint, wisdom, judgement or discretion. Temperament is another way of looking at that. What's your temperament? It is a variable for all of us depending upon circumstance. Before my morning coffee my temperament is a bit different than it is afterward. The sign of good mental health is an even temperament. I read an article describing four temperaments. According to that my temperament would be "melancholic." The experts say that temperament is innate. It is possible to change it however. They recommend getting a mental health expert to assist you with that. Imagine that. Things like that also make me smile. 

  I enjoy sarcasm. Nothing quite as funny as that stuff when done properly. When your retort can't be answered, you win. That always makes me smile. I get a lot of smiles from Facebook when complete strangers start calling me names. I'm smiling because I know they are reacting that way in defense. I also know you only need to defend yourself when you feel you are wrong. I must have made them think about what was written. It went contrary to their thoughts. Some begin to roll out their heavy artillery; citations! The thing about citations is you are now saying, I don't know, but this person does. You then expect others to accept that as fact. Well, this other person wrote it down, it must be true. Yeah, makes me smile.