#1 On Beginning
This is my first time writing to you. Hi. Hello.
It’s taken me a while to get started with this newsletter because getting started is easily the hardest part about making anything. I’ve been writing and deleting and writing and deleting because I need my newsletter to be perfect.
My quest for perfection has a lot to do with needing control over every stage of the creative process. Gimme optimality, gimme those exceptional outcomes, ohhh yeah. But processes don’t care how much validation or perfection you need. They need you to leave room for the messes and the magic and just trust them.
Like that’s easy.
I’ve found an ally in the perpetual negotiation with this need for control and perfection: curiosity.
Being curious
takes away time and energy from chasing ideals. (Why is this the goal I’m going for? What if I made my goal more realistic? kinder? more fun?)
helps you see possibilities and be grateful for them. (What doors are open for me when I’m not perfect? What if I acknowledged how hard my people and I have worked to open these?)
highlights the limits of thinking. (Can I overthink my way through this process? Am I running in circles? What if I let intuition guide me this time?)
helps you to keep moving. (What if I abandoned this unfinished project? What if I sat with the failure for a bit?)
“What if…?” doesn’t always have to be a sad question that evokes a longing for alternative past lives. It can also be a question that leads to living alternate, and very real, narratives for yourself at this moment. What if I allowed myself to feel this fully? What if I made something I never make? What if I do this thing despite being a hundred per cent sure I’ll look terrible while doing it? What if I followed my gut even though the signal is weak? What if I showed my work without apology? What if I just began, and allowed myself to figure things as I go?
An acknowledgement
Our culture fetishizes making - creating/re-inventing/modifying - especially in the areas of art, writing, and technology. Making is important, yes, and magic, even. Much of my writing will revolve around making and its processes and outcomes because making is central to my life. I work hard at cultivating an approach to making that is, at least at this point, antithetical to what our culture prescribes. I want to make for the fun of it. Process, not product. And I want to encourage you to experiment with this approach too. That said, I want to acknowledge that not everyone might want to make things. And that it’s completely okay.
A useful technicality
I’m thinking here of all the beautiful journals and sketchbooks that lie unused because making a mark on the first page is too terrifying. I am pleased to report a solution exists: Skip page one and start on page two. Leave page one blank forever! Get away on a technicality! It’s fine!
A suggestion
If you find yourself wondering what it would be like if you dabbled in that thing on your mind, consider making a small start. The smallest step counts. If you have even the teeniest hint of “this could be fun”...I recommend going for it.
With love,
Malathi