a new artistic area, but we don’t see where it will get us. We
wonder if it will be good for our career. Fixated on the need
to have something to show for our labors, we often deny our
curiosities. Every time we do this, we are blocked.
There is a logic of colors, and it is with this alone, and
not with the logic of the brain, that the painter should
conform.
PAUL CÉZANNEOur use of age as a block to creative work interlocks with
our toxic finished-product thinking. We have set an
appropriate age on certain activities: college graduation,
going to med school, writing a first book. This artificial ego
requirement asks us to be done when what we truly yearn
for is to start something.
“If I didn’t think I’d look like a jerk next to the young
guys, I’d let myself sign up for an improv class.”
“If my body looked anything the way it did twenty years
ago, I’d let myself take that jazzercize class at the Y.”
“If I didn’t think my family would consider me a stupid
old fool, I’d start playing the piano again. I still remember
some of my lessons.”
If these excuses are beginning to sound flimsy to you,
good! Ask yourself if you haven’t employed a few of them.
Then ask yourself if you can acquire the humility to start
something despite your ego’s reservations.