What Bob Ross Painting Can Teach Us About Writing

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The seriously inclement weather - more than a foot of snow and temperatures hovering somewhere south of zero degrees Fahrenheit - had knocked out the Dish system, so we were reduced to watching previously recorded fare. We settled on Good Will Hunting. A tough choice for me as I have a hard time watching Robbin Williams. “Why,” I get caught up in, “why with all that talent do you kill yourself?” But that is a distraction for another time.

This time I found myself intrigued by a question that Williams’s character, psychology prof Sean Macguire, asked Will, Matt Damian’s character: “Do you have someone with whom you can talk about anything?” or words to that effect. The question is of particular impact as we find ourselves in the midst of a pandemic that significantly compromises any kind of interpersonal communication - from trivial to deeply introspective.  If we are truly trying to help prevent the spread of the virus, and protect ourselves and our loved ones, our face-to-face contact with real live people is extremely limited. We can talk on the phone, or avail ourselves of one of the rapidly evolving “on screen” applications which allow us to interact with another, or several other, faces or felines on a screen. Somehow, I don’t think that was what Williams was asking for when he wanted to know if Will had someone with whom he could talk about anything. With whom nothing  was out of bounds.

We all know that we are supposed to have such people in our lives, but I guess that way down deep, we rarely do. If for no other reason than to spare the feelings of those for whom we care most deeply. But the question got me thinking about how we almost always create some version of that unique individual somewhere in our lives - whether a real live person or, these days, some sort of "artificial intelligence" - AI Me!  But those digital buddies are wearing pretty thin - and in reality always have.  Move your cursor if you remember Microsoft's animated Paperclip.

I also happened to be listening to Eric Larson's The Splendid and the Vile,  an audio book about Winston Churchill's time as British Prime Minister during WWII.  I was taken by how often Larson would write that so-and-so "remarked to their diary," as though the diary was an actual person - the kind Robin Williams was looking for in his question in Good Will Hunting: "Someone with whom you can talk about anything." And, my addition, who you know will never reveal any part of those conversations to another soul.  So I thought a little more about the kinds of "reflective expression" available to us today. The following struck me.

The diary written on paper, secured with one of those flimsy keys and hidden somewhere physically secure from the prying eyes of others, remains the most secure form of private "self-talk" - as those in my discipline are wont to call it. The internet has rendered all electronic communication porous.  Whether "secret" government agencies, or more overt commercial entities gathering personal information to be sold to various marketing firms, nothing - let me repeat that - nothing - we enter into our computers, phones or tablets is secure. Only the data's lack of perceived value keeps it secure. Once some entity feels there is some kind of value attached to our data, and it is worth their time, money and energy to seek it out, they will go get it. I'm not trying to creep you out here, just telling you like it is. Fortunately, nobody really cares that much about our private information.  But do keep in mind that all social networks - Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and the latest "cool" network favored by the young - are not at all private nor secure, because their users, who number in the multi-millions, are valuable markets for someone. So, if you really want secure communication think "paper and ink." If you take the next step to envelope and stamp, you must realize that you have taken an important step away from privacy. 

Ah, yes. I hear you. What the heck does all this have to do with Bob Ross's painting? [For those of you who would change that sentence to "Who the heck is Bob Ross?" you could start here:

https://www.minnetrista.net/bobrossexperience. Or just Google him.]

Let me admit - it is a bit of a stretch.  OK, it is a very big stretch, one that came to me in the tiny hours - not long after having watched yet another one of his videos:  "It's a great day here, and I hope it is wherever you are. I think we'll do a happy Fall painting today.  I have my usual pre-stretched . . . ."

If you have seen the shows you know how it goes from there. The relevant takeaway is that Ross paints [sadly now, painted] for a particular audience and from a particularly, gentle, perspective. Furthermore he spoke to you personally, conversationally, encouragingly, in a soporific voice: "You can do this!" "See I knew you could." "Isn't that a beautiful color?" "We don't make mistakes, we have happy accidents." Folks often report simply listening to the program with their eyes closed - a calming meditative experience. Ross creates an experience designed for a particular audience - those of us who seek him out - with a particular intent - yes, to teach us his method of painting - but perhaps more importantly to teach us to view the world through his eyes, which to my mind sounds and looks a whole lot like "Foster Harmony" and "Enable Beauty."

So let us think for a moment about various writing genre that focus primarily on either self-expression or sharing one's impression of your life and how to live in it. I find myself thinking mostly about diaries, autobiographies and memoirs. I define them thus:

Diaries. As mentioned in the Larson work on Churchill, these are works that are, or are believed to be, totally private, totally personal. They are intended for the author's eyes only. A diary serves as that special someone Robbins was seeking in Good Will Hunting; someone with whom you can talk about anything, but that someone is yourself. This is where you write those things you would share with no one. A diary is that space for the total honesty you think you could share with others, but really don't.

Autobiographies. We can think of these as the first cousin to diaries, in that the intent is to share the story of your life but with the realization - and the intent - that they will be read by others. These works often begin with the author aiming for the honesty of a diary, but quickly coming to realize that they need, for various reasons, to do some shading or editing along the way - sometimes to the extent of employing a ghost writer. Check out the tiny print on the second or third page of the few pages before the "real book" actually starts, in a bunch of "celebrity" biographies and you will often find phrases like "as told to" or "with so-and-so." These are the footprints left by the helping pens of "real writers." But often the honest intent and marketing ploy of most autobiographies is that this is the author telling the version of their own life story that they wish to share with a public audience.

Memoirs. These recount our lives as we choose to remember them. They often start out intending to be autobiographies or even diaries, but somewhere along the line they morph away from the life we lived into the life we wished we had lived. Vignettes that depict the way we wished the stories of our lives would have played out, should have played out if only . . .

OK, time to hop back to Bob Ross. Say what? No, really. During almost every episode - usually when he has finished using "little criss-cross strokes" to create fairly distinct bands of color across either the sky or the bottom of a painting Ross will instruct us to take "a dry, very dry, 2-inch brush and blend these bands of color so you can't tell where one leaves off and another begins."

When writing - particularly in self-expressive writing - we need to think of diaries, autobiographies and memoirs as colors. Each has different strengths and value. Each can contribute a particular band of color across our writing. The idea is not to choose one or the other, but rather to blend them so you cannot tell where one stops and the other begins, and accentuate those that best address your objectives. Ross also treats us to, and introduces us to, a palette of several hues - 5 to 8 or so - across his huge palette. As he continues the painting, he pulls paint from each of those distinct colors and mixes them on the brush to blend exactly the right shade for the portion of the piece he is working on. "Be careful not to use too much blue. It will eat up your crimson and you will be in agony city!" 

Again we need to think of diaries, autobiographies and memoirs as contributing particular colors to our writing. Each has different strengths and value and can making different contributions to our writing. A word of warning however, of particular importance in self-expressive writing. Do not pretend you are writing in diary voice if you are really attempting autobiography, or attempt to pass off a memoir as either diary or autobiography. Integrity is really all you have going for you in self-expressive writing. Don't squander it trying to fool your audience with cheap thrills.

This is, I admit, a rather strange cross-media leap of faith, and one that will make absolutely no sense at all until you have watched at least a few episodes of The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross. Give it a try and let me know what you think. :-)

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