Putting it out there – 200 words project

Here is this week’s 200 words project:

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“He wrote a cantata every week. Some weeks he was tired. Some weeks he was sick. But every week he wrote a cantata. Sometimes he didn’t have much time so he copied stuff he wrote before. And they’re not all as good as the others, but the point is this: he put it out.”

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– Dr. Stephen Jay Gould about Bach in the book Uncommon Genius: How Great Ideas are Born by author Denise Shekerjian

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How many of us are closet artists or closet painters or closet programmers? How many of us in the deep dark recesses of our homes, offices want to become writers or singers or composers but don’t tell anyone about it, and worse not even try to write or sing or compose?

And for those of us who do overcome the ‘I suck’ mentality and actually write or bake or compose, we hesitate to put the stuff out in the world. Even anonymously. There is a fear whispering in our ear – “This is crap. Everyone will laugh at you”. As if being laughed at is equivalent to death.

We fear that we are not good enough or original enough or clear enough or just afraid to put out our work.

But does it really matter? What happens when we just put it out there? In whatever form or manner? At the worst, people will laugh. Or might get ignored. Whatever. The power is in putting it out there. It is in just doing it and relinquishing control.

I wrote it, I created it. Phony, fake or trivial it might be. A copy of a previous cantata it might me. But it is still my creation. I needed to do it. It is done. Now let it live it’s own life and I can take what I learned from creating it to my next creation.

And what joy in such creating – where you create and free it, to be what it will be, what it can be, what it is destined to be.

And then you can focus your attention on the next creation, waiting, crying, straining to be born, to be created. If they like it, great! They can enjoy it freely. If they don’t like it, they are free to ignore it. Their views are not a reflection of me or who I am – because my job is the creating, as much as I can create, as best as I can create. And putting it out there. That is a part of the creative process too.

And so like Bach and like all other artists through the ages, put your creations out there.

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About the 200 Words Project

Once every week, on Monday morning, I will post my ‘200 Words Project’ post where I will ruminate on some idea which caught my interest in the current book I’m reading, or maybe (sometimes) from a blog post or podcast – in 200 words or more, never less!