The scary thing about creativity

People who know me say I'm impulsive. After having the idea to adopt a dog, it took me less than 72 hours to actually go through with the adoption. It took me less than 24 hours to decide on and go through with getting my first tattoo. And starting this blog? One night I decided to make the blog just because. I then proceeded to draft three blog posts that same day (of course spacing them out throughout the next three weeks to make it seem like I actually put more time and thought into my writing!)

When people ask me how I can afford to be so impulsive...I'm not actually sure. For me, ideas are like fast moving trains.....you better catch them and hop on for the ride before the idea leaves forever. Ideas are energizing and fleeting. Ideas feel incessantly nagging, saying "Hey I'm here! Don't forget me! Act on me now!". Ideas are opportunities that give me that boost of energy to get stuff done. It feels good to be inspired. 

And yet, lately I haven't been writing because I haven't been feeling inspired. I'd sit down to type out a blog post and.....that idea has already been said....this idea I already wrote about....this idea isn't interesting...this idea won't be relatable. One by one, I met ideas and rejected them. They weren't perfect enough. 

And then I realized.....why the hesitation? What I was feeling was fear......fear that whatever I created would not be good enough. Because to create something is vulnerable, and who likes that feeling anyway? 

The thing about creating is we ask students to do this in school all the time. We ask students to write their ideas, participate in debates, perform in front of an audience. And especially at my school (where we focus on inquiry based projects), students create all day for a grade. The thing is.... putting one's creation out there for a judge (the teacher) to assign a grade to is terrifying! No wonder why students are afraid to put their real ideas out there. No wonder why students would rather plagiarize than risk sharing their own real thoughts. 

To create something doesn't require us to perfect our creation before we share it with the world. Yet, our society latches on to the misconception that you either have talent or not. We think that people are born naturally talented. It's like we ignore the fact that hours of training and practice are required to be good at anything. Everybody's got to start somewhere, so how can we celebrate this messy in-between, especially in school where students are conditioned to think they either "get it" or they don't? 

People call me impulsive. I think a dash of impulsivity is needed when the task is to create something and throw that creation out there....just to see what happens. If I'm too careful all the time, I wouldn't jump at any of my ideas! Writing is like taking a leap of faith into the internet and waiting to see how people connect with the ideas. It's scary and exhilarating all. at the same time.