We’re told early on in life that we need to stay in the lines, don’t be sloppy, be neat. We can’t do things differently than others; that we need to blend in. But, if we aren’t given the chance to experiment, we’ll never know what we are capable of achieving. How do you learn to take leaps into the unknown when so much emphasis today is placed on being perfect?
While at college, my poetry professor, Doug Flaherty, talked about how he gathered all his poems once and burned them all. This way he wasn’t attached to the work he had done. He could re-invent himself. Plus, he knew he’d write more poems so he’d soon have another portfolio.
I did this, or something like that at the time; I threw out some of my poems. I cheated a bit and kept the ones I thought were good. But, it was a symbolic gesture and I felt like I was getting rid of a part of me I didn’t need. I felt like something new was going to happen after I did that. And something did happen, I started to write good poetry. I was getting better through practice anyway, but I didn’t have to judge myself against the inferior work of my amateur self.
Another way to break free is to pretend to be someone else for a bit. When the Beatles stopped touring in 1966 they didn’t want to be Beatles anymore, so for their next album they pretended to be a different band. They could record anything they wanted without having to sound like The Beatles. It gave them the freedom to experiment and in the process they ended up creating Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Who could you pretend to be? What pseudonym would you give yourself? What would you work on?
People are going to judge you whether you try something new or not, so don’t worry about what others think. Give yourself the creative license to live life how you want.
Who knows what you’ll create when you give yourself the freedom to experiment. Life isn’t about perfection. We can try new ways of doing things, new hobbies, or new careers. We won’t be great at anything immediately but we’ll learn along the way. The journey to self-discovery is the greatest freedom we can give ourselves.
“The journey to self-discovery is the greatest freedom we can give ourselves.”
Wow, nicely said! I find this thought very compelling. I was reading Henry Miller recently and I recall the phrase, “the final journey is inward,” that I feel is akin to Greg’s meaning here. It may seem at first counter-intuitive to look for freedom within, but if it’s not there, does it matter where your physical body is, really? Reminds me of a phrase from back in the heyday of the counter-culture, “Free your mind, and your a** will follow.”
Thanks Terry! I appreciate your comment. Love that thought from Henry Miller!