The Way Through Stone Village (Naruto)

21: Art and Athletics

[OP: Hieroglyphs-The Oh Hellos]

"What are you drawing, Sai?" Shine asked him, when she wandered into the yard between buildings and found him sitting against a wall with his sketchpad.

Sai glanced up briefly. "I'm not sure... I was trying to get a picture of what I felt earlier--and the other time."

Shine glanced at the picture...a lot of chaotic colors.

"I see," she said. "It's good to have an outlet."

"A what?" Sai asked.

"You know...something you can do that helps you process your feelings. I like to journal about mine," Shine said. "When I do, it helps me let them go. And I like to talk about them to people...if they are good listeners."

"What makes someone a good listener?" Sai asked.

"If they can listen without judging you but also not lie to you just to make you feel better, I feel like that's a good listener to me," Shine said. "God is the best listener... I can tell Him anything and know He'll never tell me the wrong thing. But God can be hard to hear when you're upset, and a good person is also a good thing to have. Wally is a great listener." She smiled. "Though he does like to talk too... We take turns. Works for us. I know that my sisters like to use art as an outlet like you do."

"Your sisters like art?" Sai said.

"Oh yeah, they do," Shine shrugged. "Creativity is important. It's one of the ways we're like God. Animals aren't very creative. They go by instinct, but you'll never see them do anything new. Every spider might spin a different looking web, but it will always be the basic shapes that they know to make. They'll never branch out and make a house from webbing or a picture. That's something we do."

"And you think this is a God-like quality?"

"Yes," Shine said. "What else could it be? Art has always moved people more than anything else we can do. Art helps us see the world around us in a different light. If we're willing to pay attention to it, art can remind us of what we've lost. It can help us have hope for the future...or it can be used to discourage people. Or to warn them. It has a lot of uses. Art is one soul communicating to other souls."

Sai glanced down at his page. "I've never thought of it that way...though Sakura did say that I made art to prove I existed."

"That's part of it too," Shine said, leaning on the wall. "But not all of it. Art is an unselfish pursuit, because to make something for others to see is giving it away, even looking at it is something. We show a part of  ourselves to people with our creations. It's really stunning how we're willing to do that. Most of us wouldn't talk about what we feel to strangers, but we'll show them. And most people don't like to listen to each other's feelings if they don't know them well, but they'll accept it in art. That's like a miracle. So, I think it's wise for you to try to capture your experience in art...just be wary of one thing."

"What thing is that?" Sai asked. She was blowing his mind.

"You can go too far," Shine said. "Art is great...but it can lead you to dwell on unhelpful feelings too much. Feelings need to be released, but some people use art to marinate in them instead, to wallow in it. I don't think you would do that, not now, but someday you might be tempted to trade real people in for art...and that's no good. Art is an imitation, no matter how good it is, of a real thing. People are real. You have to have the real thing for an imitation of it to matter at all in the long run." [Something I think we need to hear nowadays, when people surround themselves with fictional characters rather than real friends. Though I can relate to that temptation a little too well.]