Thursday, January 26, 2006

GETTING STARTED

Getting started shouldn't be the hardest thing.

When Jesse (my 4 year old) sits down to draw, or sculpt, or do ANYTHING: there is no hesitancy. The reason children don't hesitate before they create is because they are focused only on the act of doing~on the process and not the product. They are not just fearless: they are joyful.

It's only as an adult that we learn to pause before starting on a blank piece of paper, a blank canvas, a blank screen. I think we have a tendency to think ahead to the end results of our efforts and to become concerned with how they will be perceived by others.

Jesse finds the joy in the doing. As he renders his 29th drawing of spiderman with seven fingers on his left hand, he is not thinking about what will eventually become of that picture. It doesn't matter a whole lot if it ends up on the fridge, gifted to a grandparent, framed in gilt, or filed away. For him, the joy was in putting marker to paper.

Getting started shouldn't be the hardest thing.

Hey look, I started.

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