Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picturein book, called
True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest. It was a picture of a boa
constrictor in the act of swallowing an animal.
In the book it said:"Boa constrictors swallow thier prey whole, without chewing
it. After that they are not able to move, and they sleep through the six months
that they need for digestion."
I pondered deeply, then, over the adventures of the jungle. And after some
work with a colored pencil I succeeded in making my first drawing.
I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the drawing
frightened them.
But they answered:"frighten? Why should any one be frightened by a hat?"
My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor
digesting an elephant.
But since the grown-ups were not able to understand it, I made another drawing:
I drew the inside of the boa constictor, so that the grown-ups could see it clearly.
They always need to have things explained.
The grown-ups'response, this time, was to advise me to lay aside my drawings of
boa consrictors, whether from the inside or the outside, and devote myself insteal
to geography, history, arithmetic and grammar.
That is why, at the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificent career
as a painter.
I had been disheartened by the failure of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Number
Two.
Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children
to be always and forever explaining things to them.
So then I chose another profession, and learned to pilot airplanes.I have flown a
little over all parts of the world; and it is true that geography has been very useful
to me, At a glance I can distinguish China and Arizona.
If one gets lost in the night, such knowledge is valuable.
In the course of this life I have had a great many encounters with a great many people
who have been concerned with matters of consequence.
I have lived a great deal among grown-ups.
I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn't much improved my opinion of
them.
Whenever I met one of them who seemed to me at all clear-sighted, I tried the experiment
of showing him my Drawing Number One, which I have always kept.
I would try to find out, so, if this was a person of true understanding.
But, whoever it was, he, or she, would always say：
"That is a hat."
Then I would never talk to that person about boa contrictors, or primeval forests, or stars.
I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him about bridge, and golf, and
politics, and neckties.
And the grown-ups would be greatly pleased to have met such a sensible man.