On Looking at the Bigger Picture and The Art of Asking Stupid Questions

Imagine someone telling you a story in which they defied all odds, went against someone in a position of power over them, someone who had been unfair to them and came out of it successfully to boot. Well, let us put a cherry on top: They did it as a kid.

​How likely is that? Keep in mind as well that every child no matter how young or old does have a past as well. It might not fill as many pages as that of a grown up, but a page filler and thriller it may very well have been up to that point in their time.

Despite their heroic efforts, the blinding lime lights and the immense trauma overcome - do your research and mind the gaps. Not everything that glitters is gold and who of us has not met the occasional skinwalker that saw it fit to call someone else's experiences their own and pride themselves with feathers that were never theirs to wear because they never thought someone would dare to call them out on their well written fan fiction?

As far as storytelling goes, look no further than to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series and Professor Gilderoy Lockhart. His explanation for stealing from others and telling their stories as his own? According to him they were too ugly and since they were doing their work in some remote village without boasting about it, what harm had been done?

There was one thing he was good at, albeit, making people forget. So those spells he could cast in masterful fashion leading up to Witch Weekly awarding him with the "Most Charming Smile Award", a smile that after the mask had fallen was no more than a predator's smirk.

Looks are deceiving and so are names. Whenever called upon to do the work or to save the day, he had an appointment elsewhere or flat out showed that he had know clue about what he was doing. Others did the work for him and when he tried to work his spells again in his quest to claim the fame, "Obliviate!" backfired and he cast himself into oblivion. 

The opposite of the skinwalker would be the shapeshifter who instead of stealing parts of someone else's skin, learns their craft by walking their own path and taking on different roles, while walking in their own shoes never putting on someone else's. Both the skinwalker and the shapeshifter are tricksters, but only one of them is an agent of change. 

The shapeshifter walks - if you look at it from the perspective of the tarot - all the way through the major arcana, experiencing tower moments, the slow change symbolised by the 13th major arcana, turmoil and strife but also diving into moonlit waters, a stroll beneath the stars and playing in the sun.

​The skinwalker presents himself as someone who knows it all, has done it all and when asked about it, becomes a master of deflection and projection - and yes, the gap will be filled by your own creative mind, for a straight answer  you will never get.

My younger self. I don't like having my pictures taken. I did not like it as a child, it has not changed one bit. If I allow it, there is a specific reason for that. The rights to the picture belong to the photographer from back then.

Let us take a look at my story.

​In my dedication to Artur Hanzer I mentioned an arts teacher who had told me that I was not good enough at drawing with pencils and that there were hundreds of others that were better than me at it and that I was to use watercolors instead. I do not like painting with watercolors. I do not know when it changed, because I loved to do so in kindergarten and primary school. There are artists that are incredible at it and working with watercolors is indeed hard. It takes a lot of practice.

​Said arts teacher was a great teacher. He taught me a lot, especially about drawing portraits of people. Once he told us to draw the student sitting next to us, which in my case was my best friend through primary and middle school. A boy named Thomas. When you draw someone from the side perspective, you have to be mindful of how you draw the eyes. 

This is the drawing I won the competition with. Take note, I loved to draw trees. The theme of the arts competition was "Music and us".

 
When the arts teacher in question moved from desk to desk, he made a remark about how I had drawn the eye right and praised me in front of the whole class. Coincidently we had drawn with pencils which we did frequently and I loved.

​He was also not one to be fooled by anyone and to cross him in any way shape or form led to an explosion. Once we had been given the task to paint a landscape with watercolors. When done, we would walk up to his desk to show him the drawing and get advice on how to proceed. ​​

A boy named Harald had not finished his painting and instead of showing his own, he snatched the one of Christina, another classmate, who had drawn a scenery showing a farm with a red tractor. 
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Whatever Harald had thought he would accomplish by doing that, I do not know. Our teacher looked at the painting for a very long time and his energy changed completely. I knew that a thunderstorm was to come and braced myself. Without looking up, he said calmly, “Do you take me for a fool?” And then thunder, hail and lightning set in. 

​He also took over our class in biology and since the art of copying homework and not doing tasks was quite widespread, he simply did the following: He asked questions. Those who had actually done their homework themselves were able to answer them easily, those who had not… Well. ​​

He was a great teacher and mentor. I learned that someone with a good memory is the worst enemy of someone trying to steal something from someone and of course, you need to ask questions. Later I learned that stupid questions are the best questions to ask. Secondly, it takes a lot of patience to answer them, but first and foremost only a true master of their craft, someone who has indeed studied and put in the work, is able to meet a student who is facing a new cycle of learning wide eyed and timidly with an answer that fits the nature of the question. 
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Take the time to look at the big picture, ask different kinds of questions and do your research. Also note what kind of items people keep. That tells you quite a lot about them. The proof is in the pudding.  

​So why did I ask another teacher to hand in my drawing? Because someone I had perceived as being just, had hurt me in a way, I could not understand. I had been in situations before in which I could not make my voice heard, where people simply looked the other way and I could do nothing about it. In this situation I could.

​I asked my other arts teacher whom I had extra lessons with in the afternoon to hand in my drawing. She was extremely cool. Once we created book covers and dyed linen for them. I choose purple and green as my colors. Another time we sculpted the Pink Panther out of papier mache and painted him and another time we painted a book shelf that was to be used to store instruments. I chose to use the section of the book shelf I had been allowed to paint like the panels of a comic strip and painted a story with instruments as the main characters. 
 
She was game immediately. 
 
And yes. I still have pictures from back then and the original letter I received after winning the arts competition. The original drawing is still around as well. The first prize was a beach towel and an annual pass for the public swimming pool in Wolfsberg. I never used the voucher. A few years back I mentioned it to one of the people working at the swimming pool and they asked me if they could have the voucher for the museum. Documents in their original form are hard to find and every single one is proof of a tale.
 
Take the time to look at the big picture, ask different kinds of questions and do your research. Also note what kind of items people keep. That tells you quite a lot about them.

The proof is in the pudding. 

Kristin Raphaela Otti