“A little like writing or loving someone — it doesn’t always feel worthwhile, but not giving up somehow creates unexpected meaning over time.”
When we create something we always worry is it any good? Is good enough?
This can be very hard to tell.
It’s a very vulnerable thing to create something and put it out into the world. I find writing to be particularly vulnerable because there is no hiding behind abstraction, though there is plenty of it in the translation… There is the thing you intend to say, then the words you use to say it, then the words that someone picks up, and then the meaning they attach to them.
A writer has to be so careful.
I enjoy keeping journals, keeping blogs, keeping things. The act of simply indexing thoughts that come up, beautiful artifacts, or other writings that fill me up in different ways—I like to keep them because, sadly, my memory is too unreliable.
So here we are. I chose to quote the lovely Miranda July who was writing about her struggles with focus, especially when it comes to creating something that may or may not be meaningful (this new little blog may or may not be meaningful). Her essay, It Chooses You, really struck a chord with me for a few reasons. For awhile now I've had my suspicions that we don't actually choose the things that happen to us—like, this might’ve the plan all along. I’m not talking “God’s plan,” I’m talking the situations, environments, things that come in and go through us, as if they were the choosers. For instance, my career. I chose to be a designer, but in many ways I feel like I was always going to do design. I was highly conscious of typography at an early age and regularly played the style of my signature. It was much more of an identity than the clothing I wore.
I've asked a few of my friends about this topic and they seem to agree although they don't think about it. Or care. And that feels like the appropriate attitude.
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Before I sign off, if you'd like to share in a few of the awesomely smart and inspiring things I've been pooling over lately...
The Great Discontent. Conversations with creative folk on the battles they've taken on in their efforts of becoming what they were always going to be.
And The War of Art. A dear friend of mine gave me this book awhile ago and I'm just now cracking it open. It's great in that it addresses resistance—which I feel greatly in this moment.
Just keep going.