Congratulations, it’s an idea!

 

   It’s been fascinating for me to have made this large proclamation within this blog medium (it is after all just another medium, like oil paint or spray paint or a fine pair of shears…thinking here about my talented hairdresser). Because I make large proclamations all the time. “I’m going to learn to play the accordion!” “I will never buy cheap plastic crap again!” “When I wake up tomorrow I’m going to be a calm, patient, loving mother!” But making a proclamation and analysing myself follow through on it is a new one for me. It’s like I’m doing the idea and learning about what an idea is at the same time.

    Here’s what I figured out about ideas today in the bathroom. I think they are born, like babies. Naked, screaming, covered in primordial slime. And there they are, in your face, what can you do? They are 100% pure, unadulterated potential (well, they have their fate stuffed in there too). Once they are out in the oxygen, they immediately start to get shaped. I had this image in my head of a naked baby’s skin being shaped by its first onesie. Contained.  Everything we do for that idea/baby the second after it is born is shaping, defining, helping, steering, coaxing, loving. For this idea/baby to reach its potential, it has to fit into at least some of what is going on around it otherwise it will fail to make it. And job of the parent/idea-ist is to constantly gauge and change the setting to create an environment which will give its baby/idea the best possible chance of becoming the thing it’s meant to be.  

    So I’ve come up some ground rules. Not mandatory to work on weekends. If it’s bursting to be written and it works within that day’s family chemistry, that’s fine. Not going to write at night. This does not count working into the night, which can be a gorgeous thing. I am going to have to wake up earlier. Since I cannot possibly fit more into my already crammed day, I’ll have to add more hours to the day.

Off to the beach with the family. Later.

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