The first step is always difficult. Even when confidence is high, the beginning of any new journey is wrought with the factors of the unknown. We know little of how well we are going to be, of what the steps on the path will bring to us as we move forward. Around each bend resides another challenge to contend with, another opportunity to be shown the lack of our abilities.
This is certainly true when thinking about moving forward with creative pursuits.
Our first steps are certain to be unbalanced. Clumsy. Full of missteps and stumbles. Why is it we feel it would be any different? Confidence or delusion tells us it will all go off without flaw. What is it within us that is so afraid to allow for these troubles? As though any failure in the process is an indication of the absolute failure of the attempt.
Starting on anything new is a trial. It’s an experiment of sorts. Learning to do anything new takes time and effort, even when it is an offshoot of something one already knows how to do. Maybe it takes less time in these cases. Maybe the stumbles are fewer, but they are still there. We would be foolish to believe it could be — or should be anything different. We should expect to have these stumbles. Not only expect them, embrace them.
It is difficult for certain. Humans do not like failing. It frustrates us. Drives us. (Mostly away from the prospect of doing a thing.) Often, if it is something we really desire, then the failures are acceptable… as long as there is signs of progress. Like breadcrumbs leading us along the trail. Learning to play a musical instrument can be one. Learning to paint, another. Things where we are determined to master a skill or something similar. But within this, often fear lurks even still, discouraging us from progress.
For many years, I have wanted to takes steps in my writing. Skill is there (or at least I hope it is). Better, I should say that talent is there. Talent is that raw ability some possess. Generally, talent resides in creative or athletic abilities, although it can live within disciplines outside of those realms. People can have talent as leaders, for instance. Talent is akin to a better starting position in a game. Better starting resources. Regardless of whether I have talent or not, the rules of effort and those mentioned above would still apply. Beginning steps may be a little more stable, but the possibility for stumbling remains.
To get better, one has to be willing to chance stumbling. Failure has to be allowed. No, not allowed, encouraged. One has to embrace the opportunity to even have the chance for it. Seeking perfection, avoiding failure, is the surest way to remain in one place — that place I am claim I am trying to move from.
I must be willing to fail in order to learn how I might succeed.
Part of this is something I learned while listening to a recent podcast with guest Gad Saad, where the Canadian Evolutionary Psychologist talked about the need to have fun. The words struck me, realizing in many ways where I have drifted far away from this in my own life. Fun was forgotten.
Besides the bad habit of constantly making jokes when inappropriate (mostly as a defensive mechanism), my life is a series of tasks and objectives. My writing and other creative pursuits suffered most after my family or social life. I forgot to have fun. I forgot how to have fun.
Fun doesn’t mean cracking jokes and laughing, as much of that can just as easily come from a place of insecurity and malevolence (as I well know from my own steps on that path). It can be. Fun can mean laughing and cracking jokes. Fun is more than that, though. Part of it is the understanding and acceptance of failure. Fun has with it a willingness to see what happens. It’s an exploratory impulse. Fun is, simply put, play. And I’ve forgotten how.
To be OK with failure.
To have fun.
To play.
Allowing these to enter back into my creative life might not see me gaining success, but the question should be, what success am I having if I am afraid to fail, can’t have fun, and refuse to play?
Thinking about it, it doesn’t sound much like success at all. What it sounds like is a job. Another career similar to those careers we all dread. A means to an end. Pursuit of a metric. Chasing a carrot unsure if the carrot is even worth it.
Where this all came from is expected. We chase perfection when we create, trying desperately to produce what it is inside our heads, in our vision. Yet, that is really part of what art is — the struggle between our vision and the ability we possess to bring it to life. It can be frustrating, difficult, challenging, and more. This aversion to failure, to risk then pushes us to be serious about our craft.
But it should be fucking fun. Even if there’s a high risk of falling flat on our face. This is what I have been missing. This is what is keeping me from being able to move forward. Fear of failure and the inability to have fun, both feeding each other.
It’s essential for me to not only continue with the career I am working toward, but also to start these new ventures I’ve held off trying for so long for that fear. Of forgetting the point of creating is in itself a pursuit of failure through play.
Those first steps might be terribly placed. I might stumble quite a lot. Maybe so. Maybe I can make it fun and embrace the chance to fail at it. Maybe then I might succeed. Even if success is not how I might want it.
And if I can’t have fun, then what’s the point of it anyway?
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