The General and the Artist

“I have more power than anyone else,” boasted the general as he polished his medals.

“I can force nations of men into surrender and I have the power to take a life. I wield the the fear of death over men and they do as I command.”

The artist listened and thought pensively. She asked the general: “What does your heart wish for?”

The general said: “a garden, with my mother who passed away”

“What kind of garden?”

“With wisterias. Her favourite flowers.”

The artist prepared her paints. She took out a blank canvas and started to paint. The general waited patiently and curiously. The afternoon passed. At last the artist announced she was ready. The general with amusement and cool arrogance nodded expectantly. 

The artist revealed a painting of a beautiful garden. She had masterfully rendered the sunlight dotted behind the leaves of the vines. Butterflies and ladybugs danced in streaks of sunlight across the foreground. Underneath a canopy of blooming wisterias, an elderly lady sat on an oak bench. With her gentle eyes and serene knowing smile, the artist had somehow captured the very vision of unconditional love itself. She watched a small boy playing with a mouse at the center of the scene. The painting as a whole was so realistic, it seemed to move and come to life, like one was watching a scene through a window.

“I created this painting that was inspired by your heart’s greatest wish,” the artist said. 

“This is my power of creation, I can create any image I want. I have complete power over my blank canvas”

“At first I drew the wisterias and this woman that represents your mother. However, in my heart I felt something was missing, so with my imagination I included this young boy.”

The general was speechless. Eventually he spoke, his voice choking, barely a whisper: “My mother never got a chance to play with my grandson. This is my heart’s greatest wish. It is such a painful longing that I do not dare speak it out loud, even to myself. It is a longing more powerful than my own desire to live or die or be remembered.”

And the general weeped.

I wrote this parable inspired by my own healing journey. Coming out of survival mode transformed the way I saw my life. I was no longer seeing my life as a series of battles won and lost but as a work of art. In both cases I had power but I marvelled at how much richer was the power of artistic creation over the power to control and punish. It is truly a testament to a lesson I have mastered: that the imagination dominates physical reality.