On one small square of paper, a red figure stands upright.
Large black eyes. A curved smile. Long grey legs. Arms slightly open. Underneath, in careful uneven letters, he has written spiderman.
On another square, separate but somehow connected, there is a boat.
Just a curved outline, dark circles inside, floating in white space.
He told me it’s a boat.
That is all.
No sea.
No sky.
No buildings.
No villains.
No waves.
Just a hero and a boat.
And I keep thinking about it.
When children draw heroes, they strip them down to their essence. There is no dramatic pose, no web shooting between towers, no muscular definition. The hero is simply upright. Present. Smiling.
Strength, to a child, is not aggression. It is not complexity. It is not burdened by backstory.
It is colour.
It is stance.
It is kindness.
And then there is the boat.
A boat is trust in motion.
You only draw a boat if you believe something can be crossed.
Water is not even visible here. The page is empty. But the boat exists anyway. Which means the ocean is assumed. Imagined. Felt.
That might be the most profound part.
We adults demand to see the entire map before we move. We want the sea drawn, the weather forecasted, the coordinates fixed. Children do not. They draw the vessel first. They assume the crossing is possible.
And look at the relationship between the two drawings.
Spiderman is not inside the boat.
He stands beside it.
It is as if courage and journey are separate but related. One is identity. The other is movement.
You must first stand upright in who you are before you step into what carries you forward.
Or maybe the boat is him.
And the hero is who he believes he can become.
Or maybe the hero stays on shore while the boat ventures into the unknown.
There is something deeply tender in the white space around both sketches. He did not feel the need to fill it. He is not anxious about emptiness. The world does not have to be fully constructed for meaning to exist.
A hero can stand in unfinished space.
A boat can float on an unseen sea.
That is faith.
As adults, we clutter our pages. We add backgrounds, narratives, defenses. We armour our heroes and weigh down our boats. Somewhere along the way, we stopped smiling in our own drawings.
But here, on two small pieces of paper, courage is simple.
Stand tall.
Smile.
Trust the vessel.
Leave room for the ocean you cannot yet see.
Maybe that is all life ever asks of us.
And maybe a child understands that long before we do.
By the way, did you know that I’m actively writing in malayalam also these days. Find them here. I’ve written a small book as well if you’re into that. If you like listening to stuff, do scroll through the selection of podcasts. If you’ve time, have a look at the visuals I’ve made