When you buy something because you like or love it, then value comes not from the price you pay but from the joy or satisfaction it brings to the heart. However if you obtain something for a commercial reason that essential quality goes missing. You always fret about the cost etc. and rarely realise it's value.
One day a man looking to make a financial investment bought a painting supposedly made by the famous painter Pablo Picasso. Since this man had bought it merely as a commercial investment with no attraction towards it, he was a worried man. "Did I pay too much for it? What if the value does not increase? The greatest fear, was it a fake?"
He had spent a lot of money and now felt ill with worry. A few days later a friend met the buyer and remarked, how bad the man looked. The man confided in his friend on what was eating him up.
Unlike many great painters who were recognised only after their death, Picasso was very famous and wealthy even while he was alive. The friend reassured him, "If it worries you so much let me help you. Pablo Picasso happens to be well known to me. We will take your painting to him directly and ask him to verify if it is a fake or not."
The man thanked his friend profusely for his assistance. They set a date and time when they would go to meet Picasso himself after the friend had secured an appointment with Picasso.
After receiving the visitors Picasso examined the painting. After a brief while in a rather dismissive manner, Picasso declared, "This painting is not genuine."
The buyer clutching his forehead the buyer collapsed onto the floor as his knees buckled under him from the shock. moaning, "I should never have trusted that seller, that cheat. Why did I have to buy it? What have I done? I have bought a fake."
Picasso helped revive the sobbing buyer and said" I never said it was a fake, I said it was not genuine."
The buyer and the friend were now thoroughly confused. The man asked, "What is the difference? Fake or not genuine, why play with words, is it not the same thing?"
Picasso said, "No, there is a big difference. A fake is something made by someone else. I actually painted this myself, therefore this painting is not a fake. However when I made this painting, I was not really in a creative mood. A man had come to buy a painting and I had none to show him. I told him to come back next week. This man would not take a no, he wanted to buy something and he wanted it right away. So I painted something for him in a few hours. This painting is a copy of another painting I had made much earlier. "
"I say it is not genuine because, I never put my heart and soul into it, just some physical and memory work. " This painting it is not a work of art, it is not genuine. It is just some colours on a piece of canvas which lacks passion and a soul. "
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When first produced, it is born out of passion, the story, painting, dance or song has a soul, a life. When we repeat or duplicate it which we often do, it becomes just a mere copy.
Copies lack a soul, and without that a soul art is just noise, a piece of canvas or paper. Every work of art, or creativity is invaluable. The moment we assign a monetary value to art we give birth to a business and in the bargain we destroy both the art and the artist.
Whenever something is created or prayers offered or friendship made, to earn money, it ceases to be genuine, for it lacks that special quality which it possesses when it is born out of passion and love.
This is also why many relationships personal, social or professional last only for a short period of time before disintegrating. Fakes die soon and genuine endures for long.
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Living genuinely is not difficult, all it requires is integrity, to be honest with oneself. Yes it requires courage, to be true to oneself, but it is very worth it.
I have discovered that living genuinely and not as a copy, has enriched my life and made it vibrant. My soul and I are now closer to being one, and nothing can beat that.
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