Graffiti 

 

 

Clarity is not something that needs any special talent. It is not something like the talent to be a painter, a poet, a musician. Everybody cannot be a musician, it is clear. There is no need either, because there is enough noise already. There is no need that everybody should be a painter, because almost every wall, every bathroom, every place where somebody can practice his art is full.

 

You will find proof of the insanity of man everywhere. In a railway station you go into the bathroom and you look around: graffiti has become an art form. These are great artists who are doing all this nonsense. What kind of people are these who come into the bathroom to paint and write things – and ugly things. But these must be in their minds, they must be carrying them everywhere.

 

You are passing by the side of people who are throwing all kinds of garbage. They are not throwing at you, they are just so full they have to throw it; otherwise they will die. They are simply unburdening themselves.

 

Of course if they start throwing rubbish and things like that on the road, they will be caught by the municipality or the police and they will be presented in court, charged with making the whole road dirty. But these things that they are throwing are invisible, no court can do anything. No policeman has yet been given an instrument to catch hold of these people’s graffiti that they are throwing all around.

 

If they throw it in the bathroom it is impossible that they are not throwing it in the office, because for the mind it makes no difference. In the bathroom they find it easier because the door is locked and they are alone. But they have come prepared. From where come these colors and pencils? – they have come perfectly ready, with all the instruments. They are throwing their graffiti everywhere, and you may be catching it.

 

-Osho, "From Misery to Enlightenment, #20“