I’ve been thinking a lot about flailing about in the throes of a personal project lately.
I’ve spent a lot of years seeking some kind of creative destination. In my head it has always been a place I was going and, blah blah blah we all know the real lesson in life is that the journey is often more important. It’s a cliché by this point, print it on a wooden board and hang it in your kitchen.
We’re a little less clear on what that journey looks like, and if you were to ask an average person what such a creative adventure might look like I suspect you would get an answer that was romantic and filled with joyous struggle and teetering on the edge of cinematic.
The creative journey is rarely that: it’s more often stumbling through an unmarked trail, sloshing through the muck, swatting mosquitoes and not just losing your map but realizing you were following the wrong one from the outset. It is rife with zero bars of cell coverage. It is forgetting the sunscreen and an umbrella and needing both. It is hearing the rustle of wild animals just out of sight and never quite knowing if it is a harmless squirrel or a hungry bear.
Creativity is flailing and failing over and over, and possibly never reaching a destination, but experiencing the adventure—and loving that you set out upon it. I am lost out here with you all and under the category of Fail & Flail I’ll be writing more on this topic as the months wear on.