The Eye of the Tiger

One fine day someone asked me where I learned to paint.
And I answered that every time I tried.

I think I did not leave my interlocutor very happy with the answer, but if they ask me again, I would say the same thing again.

I feel that I have learned some techniques, that I have learned how materials behave, how tools can be used, but above all, I think I have learned to trust. To trust that I will be quick enough to learn at the same moment of the challenge.
To trust that I can learn how to take the brush now that my hand hurts.
To trust that I will learn how to make the mix to obtain the colors that I am imagining.
To trust that I will learn how to talk with those spots. That I will learn that with this temperature in the environment the paint dries faster.

I think you learn that you must learn at the very moment. Like when you talk to someone for the first time.. or when you dance for the first time with your special one.. or when you kiss her for the first time.. or when you play basketball with a stranger.. or when you fight for the championship like Rocky.

Of course, the training solves more than half the problem. Do it again and again until you respond almost automatically, but there is a decisive moment in which you must learn and analyze all the variables and confront with blind faith, listening to your head but taking the strength that your heart gives you and following your instincts without knowing for sure what the result will be.

This time, for example, I had to learn that the ink was too liquid and that I would not be able to control it to make the spots of the giraffes that I had planned to paint.

Learn, improvise, experiment, risk, let go.

I suppose all the giraffes in the world must learn all that.
But also the tigers.

Maybe they are not so different.

...
Or maybe I have not learned anything yet.