3 AM and I\u2019m sure I\u2019ve done the dumbest thing ever. I had woken up feeling cold and immediately started thinking.
That night I had invited a bunch of people over. I had been wanting to do this all year. With so many things shut down, and so much suspicion of one another, I\u2019d wanted to gather people and remember the beautiful artistic things in the world.
I\u2019d finally chosen a date and invited all the people I could think of to join. I figured we\u2019d read from my favorite Shakespeare Play ( \u201cAs you like it\u201d) and I would invite people to share their own poems or anything they might have created. I was nervous and exited.
Until the day
Until 3 AM
Until I woke up in a cold sweat sure that I had made the biggest mistake, and wrecked everything. All the people I\u2019d invited would be so repulsed that they would never speak to me again. I had sabotaged me life with this idea.
In his book The War of Art, Stephen Pressfield names this irrational terror I was experiencing. It is The Resistance. A deep primal human instinct rooted in the need to survive.
Duck. Stay in the shadow. Keep your head down.
Don\u2019t be the one to stand out.
That\u2019s a good policy for rabbits and other prey.
I will never be fully rid of the rabbit inside of me. And I\u2019m never going to be free of the desire to do and try new things. That\u2019s where The Resistance comes in. It\u2019s scary to do step out of the familiar into greater excellence. In fact, it can be outright terrifying.
In the light of the morning, I was still nervous. But I had a little more perspective. I made room for the fear and made the arty party come together. I was clumsy and disorganized because of that fear, but I did it anyway.
And in the actual event, everyone enjoyed themselves. It was a tiny little gathering, and it did exactly everything I hoped it would.
I felt the fear and did it anyway. I took one step in the direction I wanted to go. I was awkward, messy and a little incoherent. But I still did it.
And I remember: that\u2019s what beautiful things consist of:
Clumsiness
Disorganization
awkwardness
mess
incoherence
terror
At least the beautiful things that I make are like that. And without those, nothing would be made. I\u2019m happy with my clumsy mess. It\u2019s better than being a rabbit.
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3 AM and I\u2019m sure I\u2019ve done the dumbest thing ever. I had woken up feeling cold and immediately started thinking. That night I had invited a bunch of people over. I had been wanting to do this all year. … Continue reading