When taking the bus on this route apart from reading I also had another strange idea. I am an amateur artist and I wondered whether I could sketch on the bus looking at the scenery outside. Unfortunately, the bus moved too fast for me to do this. But the biggest problem was it seemed an attention-seeking idiotic thing to do on a bus. Then it struck me - why not inconspicuously sketch interesting elements from different parts of the journey in my small blank notebook and put it all together in one composition back home. So I sketched an interesting tree from one part of my journey, and a vegetable seller in another, and a building from another area and put them all in one picture. This presented problems of scale, perspective, and logic but when it comes off right it looks spectacular. Many people have questioned me where in Sri Lanka there was such unusual scenery and my answer was always "everywhere".
The first thing you realize when you start doing art is that some of the artists are quite poor. There are exceptions but I think it is safe to say that art is a loser's game. I recently read a book by a celebrated psychiatrist named Eric Berne titled "What do you say after you say hello" subtitled "The Psychology of Human Destiny" in which he says that most people are involved in playing Games, and some people play games that invariably lead them to lose.....but like an insect attracted to a light that inevitably leads to its death....artists draw and paint playing a losing game not once but all their lives. But what I wondered is the "Light" that attracts the artist and found it was a kind of dream, an incredible feeling you get when you do a drawing or a painting. The fact is when faced with a choice between doing something however successful that makes them unhappy and art at least a few people choose art.
Which brings to mind an interesting thing I heard on BBC Radio a few years ago. I just turned it into this station by mistake and a man was talking, he seemed to be an Englishman, probably the host of a popular talk show, but before I could turn it to another station he asked "But what then sir is your problem" and another man answered, "Well I am very rich, I've been rich all my life, I have a wonderful wife and great kids, I live in a kind of house most people only dream of, I have many great friends who are always trying to help, I have everything I ever wanted to have, but I don't know why, but I am terribly depressed." And the other man asked "But Why?" and he said, "I don't know, but it is a terrible feeling, an empty, empty feeling." I swear to God this really happened on the radio.
I have often wondered how people who have more than everything they ever need be unhappy. Maybe when this happens they lose purpose and ambition and can no longer trust relationships because they feel that people are not interested in them but only after their money. The next big thrill for the super-rich seems to be racing each other to Mars, or buying a yacht large enough to put their earlier yacht in, things somewhat similar to what they did when they were very young.
Then I wondered why this unhappy person didn’t become an artist. When faced with a choice between being depressed and doing something that makes you happy I guess I will choose art. It is an incredible feeling. So I will give below a poem I wrote which I hope will help unhappy people if ever they take the trouble to read it.
If you make a friend of Time
It wouldn't matter that you have no dime
For waves that break in the mangrove beach
Will pull your ship from that sinking reef
If the lighthouse is afar
And a misty fog blocks the North Star
Follow the seagulls to the left
Or north or south whichever is best
An oyster that pricks your feet
Could have a pearl on some distant beach
A raft that is blown to sea
Will reach the Island of Serendib
