When I went to elementary school for the first time, I had a brand-new box of Crayola Crayons. There were 8 colors in that box…and I was so very proud of every one of those little guys. I had red, yellow, blue, green, orange, brown, violet, and black. Those were the original colors that Crayola introduced in 1903. They’re the same colors in the box of 8 crayons that you can go buy today. Every one of my classmates had the same box of the same colors of the same brand of crayons. It wasn’t mandated by the school on a laundry-list of school supplies. It was the one option for crayons that the stores carried. Crayola Crayons weren’t even labeled with a number on the box…they were just Crayola Crayons.

Eight colors had us covered back in 1968. We could represent the world with those 8 crayons. Everybody had the same limitations and opportunities. You can’t mix colors with crayons like you can with paint. There’s no real blending or melding. Brown is brown. You might be able to intersperse the colors a bit, but where the image is brown, it’s just brown. Nothing more, nothing less. Brown.

We did our coloring at school or home and proudly presented our artwork to our Mom or Dad. They fawned over our artistic endeavors and appreciatively displayed our pictures on the refrigerator door. We didn’t worry that our coloring didn’t exactly represent the things that our minds-eye saw. We colored with our eight crayons and created close approximations of what we envisioned. Everybody knew that the colors weren’t perfect. The 8 colors in the crayon box were what we had…and we used them to the best of our ability.

When you wanted to represent the sky you had one normal choice, blue. Same for grass, green. If you wanted to show a river underneath a summer sky, both were blue. There were always those kids who would color the sky red, but they were either really artistic or really goofy. If your goal was to create an accurate representation of the world and not an artistic interpretation…they sky was colored with the blue crayon. Not much of a choice, but that was ok.

Over the years, the number of crayons in Crayola’s boxes grew to 16, 24, 48, 64, 96, and even 120 crayons. With each increase in the number of colors, more options and opportunities for subtlety were introduced. The crayon artwork became more sophisticated. The ability to more closely resemble the world increased. But even with the massive pallet of 120 crayons, it was still a struggle to represent the world accurately. The colors were closer…but still could be a bit off.

And there are so many more ways to misinterpret each other’s artwork.

When there are only 8 colors to choose from, everybody knows that’s the limit. There’s lots of room for acceptance in a world like that. You know that the sky is exactly that color of blue…but it’s what the artist had. It’s an acceptable representation because the tools were limited. We accepted the approximations, celebrated the artwork, and went on with our lives.

Today, with all the colors available, in some respects, our standards are much higher. We have come to expect that the representations will be more true to life. You see navy blue and I see denim. We both know they’re close but not perfectly representative of the subject matter…but we’ve been split a little bit apart. Not a huge distance apart, but placed in slightly different artistic boxes. A tiny little space has been created between us where we interpret each other’s work a bit more critically than necessary.

Mind you, we don’t really do this with our own kids work. Heck, I know that my kids are the most talented, smart, gifted, and artistic kids on the planet. But your kids…maybe, maybe not. Along the halls of the school I’ve seen a lot of artwork that proves that your kid isn’t all that artistic. Heck, your kid can’t even get the color right.

But it’s not the sort of thing we verbalize. In fact, it might not even be the sort of thing you’ve every really thought about consciously. But we’re assessing and judging all the time. We look at the world and try to figure out our place in it and we try to discern the place where our kids fit in.

Walking down the hallway of the school, with all the artwork, it’s pretty easy to judge the young artists without even realizing it. With all the colors at their disposal, the potential Picassos may pick a shade that doesn’t match my expectation. The color may be just a little bit off from what I would prefer. And I end up disliking the entire drawing because of a minor difference in color choices.

That’s kind of like life. When we had fewer colors, it was easier for everyone to come to agreement. The sky is blue, the grass is green, the fire is red, yellow, and orange. We all had a greater shared experience when we had fewer colors to choose from. We came to agreement vastly more. There were fewer colors that we had to had to worry about, and fewer shades of meaning. It was easier to determine if you were on the same wavelength. In many ways, we were less divided. Folks who liked blue were all gathered together using the heck out of the blue crayon. Sure they were compromising, it wasn’t exactly the blue they wanted, but they were all in the blue camp. No separation of the wild blue yonder people and the sky blue people. No division between the cerulean and blue green folks. Blue was blue.

Don’t misunderstand, I love diversity. I cherish varied opinions. Some of my best friends favor cornflower over all the other blue crayons. But when you get right down to it, we’re all blue crayon folks. Just tinged with a bit more red or green.

The next time you’re out there and can’t find common ground with someone…think about those eight crayons. Would you both be blue people? Or green people? Or ardent fans of orange? Rather than looking at all the things that are different between the two of you…look for what you have in common. At the very core of things, we have a lot more common with folks than we have not in common.

But it’s all in how you look at it. You can battle over the superiority of green blue and indigo or you can join together as supporters of blue.

It’s your choice whether to divide or connect. Honestly, I’d prefer to connect with people!