Dear Reader,

I’d like to share with you an episode that occurred during my years in kindergarten. It surfaced in my memory, quite appropriately, while I was reasoning about putting some final touches on a piece of work, or taking a few shortcuts instead.

My assignment was to draw the Italian flag: three vertical strips one green near the pole, one white, one red. As every child would do, I took a piece of white paper and traced the rectangular outline with a grey pencil, then proceeded to fill a stripe with a green crayon and another with a red one.

The white colour in the middle, you would say, was naturally provided by the paper itself.

Then, something happened, something that you would only do if you are free from preconceptions as a child is: I took a light blue and started to softly graze over the white to provide the hint of another colour over the paper.

My kindergarten teacher was, not surprisingly, puzzled, and demanded explanations! I tried to explain my point as best as a five years old child could, but I was not able to persuade her, and she gave what I perceived as a “please conform to the norm” boring lecture.

My point? Since the green and red parts were coloured with a pencil, they had a specific texture and irregularity, and they seemed more natural and fabric-like than the plain bright white area in the middle. What I tried to do was to give some movement and texture to that portion as well, picking a light colour that would still leave the white prominent.

Was I crazy? Was I just foolish/inexperienced/childish? Was it a good work? I do not know.

What I’m sure of is that after 35 years I still think that doing the unexpected, not accepting inhomogeneous quality levels and going the extra mile is almost always better than “being reasonable”. Trying and not being successful or understood is more important than “conforming”. No outstanding and memorable result came out of standard procedures.

Is there an area of knowledge, a piece of work, a discipline or a craft where you feel like you could do more or better? Try doing the unexpected. Try polishing that detail. Try changing your point of view. Try finding the move that could change the game.

Try.

Try.

Try.

Until next time, I’ll keep painting white on white.