The beaver and the hawk were friends, and over lunch one day, they both admitted to each other that they had wanted to try drawing for the longest time. It was only natural, then, that a deal was struck - they would both practice drawing for a month, and see how well the other had done, perhaps with only a tint of friendly competition. In good spirits, as they wrapped up lunch, each promised the other that they would do their best.
The beaver was industrious in all the best ways, and so he set about his life with a sketchpad and pencil, sketching, sketching, sketching. Practice made his hand deft and skilled, but there was always something missing. A line that matched reality as it existed did not capture it as it spoke, and so a tree was just a tree, not a shelter, nor a spire. It frustrated him, and his hand, while willing and eager, could not follow instructions that were not given.
The hawk lived in dreams, and so as she went about her day, she found the dreams that were most vivid, shoved them in little jars in her head and brought them back to her abode, where she tried to let them spill out onto the page. In her head there were vast sweeping lines and fractal spirals and love and truth, but whatever touched the page was suddenly mundane, no longer dreamlike. Her head was willing, but her hand was not.
When they met up again a month later, neither was exactly eager to show, but the beaver, ever the kind soul, was more than happy to go first, assuring the hawk that her work was undoubtedly excellent. As he laid out his drawings, the hawk couldn’t believe her eyes. There was what she could not do - the way that a blade of grass was effortlessly, gesturally captured, and wind seemed to animate a meadow. She told the beaver as such, and didn’t stop when he got bashful.
Eventually, though the hawk had already accepted that her friend was more talented than her, she let the beaver see a few of her less embarassing works. And though the lines were rougher than his, and you could tell that she had run out of space on the page on all of them, the beaver didn’t notice any of that. There was the unreality, the purity, he had sought nd not found. She broke from what was, and in so doing spoke to what could be, what had been, to heart. When he started complimenting her, she thought he was just taking pity on her, but he continued the onslaught until there was no doubt left he was being genuine.
The two of them, then, were at an impasse - both were sure the other was better, had whatever counted as true artistic talent, and that they themselves had only done what was easy and trivial, building out of sticks and stones while the other was engineering a rocketship.
“Well,” said the beaver, ever the diplomat, “What if we’re both good?”
”No, that’s not - look at that tree there!” Said the hawk, pointing at a rather lovely rendition the beaver had made.
“I’m amazed by you, and you’re amazed by me. Isn’t that how friends are supposed to be?” Said the beaver, patiently.
The hawk opened her beak, then closed it, thinking. Eventually, she spoke.
“Maybe you think I’m better because I’m better at what you’re worse at, and vice versa. We think that what we’re good at is easy because it’s easy for us, but talent is…” The hawk trailed off, words stringing into thoughts.
The beaver took a few seconds to figure out what the hawk meant. “Oh! But talent is what comes easy to us.”
The hawk nodded sharply.
“So then, does it matter?”
The hawk didn’t reply.
“I think it’s a possibility that we’re both wonderful artists.”
The hawk smiled, and the two friends joined in a tight embrace.
this is great + also matches with my experience with creativity...the distance between the form something takes and your own vision of the idea can be so stark you fail to see that what it's come into on its own is also something beautiful and valuable
and also, even when you get to a point where you Have to integrate skills that don't come as naturally to you, the old style still carries over and it can be so cool to look back and see the continuity. sometimes i think i embrace imperfection a little too much, but it's also often wonderful to remember and witness in its rawness