I sympathize with your view (although with s/5 year old/me/). However, over the years I have come to realize that many of the things I used to think I could ha

I sympathize with your view (although with s/5 year old/me/). However, over the years I have come to realize that many of the things I used to think I could have done, I actually could not have...to say nothing of your 5 year old. It might look like a few apparently random splotches of paint could have been put there by you, but in many cases looks are deceiving. You might watch a grandmaster chess game and think that you could make those moves. Or perhaps you see a solution to a traveling salesman decision problem and think "it's easy to see there exists a path that short". But in both cases you're mistaken. The moves you would have played wouldn't be as good as the grandmaster's. The path you would find wouldn't be as short. And the paint splotches you would throw on the canvas wouldn't look as compelling. Yes, there does exist shitty "art"--things that you or your 5 year old could have done. But I suspect it's less common than you think.