Meeting The Terracotta Men

If you're in or anywhere near London in the next few weeks, I can thoroughly recommend a visit to the British Museum's exhibit of some of China's terracotta men.

In case you don't know the background to them (I must admit I didn't until recently), they're just a few of the estimated eight thousand lifesize figures buried with Ying Zheng, China's first emperor, in about 230 BC, apparently as servants to cater for his needs in the next world.

They weren't seen again until a chance discovery in 1974 unearthed a few of them, and so far about 1,000 have turned up.

A dozen of them are currently on show at the museum, and the best part of the whole thing is, you can get close to them... actually walk up to them and look them in the eye. It's a very strange experience, and really moving - and they're not at all the way I'd pictured them.

I'd imagined they'd be... well, just terracotta figures, with nothing much more special than their story to recommend them.

I can only say that I owe them, and the 1,000 people believed to have sculpted them, a massive apology.

They are incredible. They're absolutely lifelike, and have real personality. Apparently when they were originally sculpted they were painted, too, with proper flesh-tones for their hands and faces, and the appropriate colors for their clothes. That must have been some sight to behold!

It had simply not occurred to me that people were producing works of art of that standard over 2,000 years ago - the word "impressive" doesn't even begin to do them justice.

Apparently they were modelled on real people - the sculptors are believed to have used their fellow-workers as their inspiration - and that's what really made me think.

The terracotta men are all unique individuals, different in height and build and facial expression, and not to be mistaken for any of their colleagues. Some look happy - some look fierce. Some carry various implements apparently designed to show what they were skilled in - as well as warriors, there are acrobats, musicians, and even a few bureaucrats, too!

That's what really got me thinking. You see, every human being is just as individual - in looks, in personality, in temperament and in their talents - not just the amount of talent someone has, but in the precise combination of abilities, ambitions, skills and interests they possess. No-one else has now, has had or is going to have, the same.

That means, if you don't use the skills you have, there's no-one else to do it for you. No-one else can write the books or poems, songs or business plans that you might. No-one else can solve the problems you can, in the ways that you can solve them. No-one else can be the partner, parent, friend or colleague you can be... and no-one else can have exactly the same measure of success in what you want to do as you can.

The sculptors of the terracotta men created work that's lasted for 2,000 years, and still has power to delight and to inspire. What can you create... and why not start right now?