#355 How to know what you’re meant to write about
Before I write, I barely know what I want to write.
The more I write, the more I know what I’m meant to write.
Intention can be there before the practice. But meaning only shows up when YOU show up.
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#9 Admiring early work
ByLukasAdmiring (flawed) early work is easy when we already know the late work is going to be great.
Everyone forgives Picasso or Da Vinci for a lousy early sketch. In fact, people pay good money to hang one in their living room.
Maybe the early work, showing that even the greats are mere mortals on a journey towards excellence, is the most valuable?
And yet, it’s much harder to be gentle on a beginning artist for shipping mediocre creative work – not in the least for the beginning artist themselves – when their path to excellence hasn’t unfolded yet.
After all, something that one day will be “my early work” is still “my current best work” today.
The road to excellence is invisible from the trenches.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Which makes me wonder…
When I know that through persistence and daily practice, one day, I’ll look back on today’s creation, smiling, thinking: “Oh how far I’ve come… How much I’ve learned… And some of this was actually pretty good…”
Can I admire my creative work less for what it looks, feels, or sounds like, and more for who I’m becoming through making it?
Can I do the same for the creative projects of others?
With that mindset… How much easier and forgiving would the daily creative journey be?
#60 Memory is context
ByLukasMemory is context – in language and in general.
Context of words surrounded by other words and sounds within a sentence.
- apple orchard
Context of words surrounded by actions – actor, action, object affected (in whatever way or order your mother tongue expresses it).
- I pick an apple from the tree.
Context of words and the images they spur.
- An apple falls on Newton’ head.
- An apple falls off a tree in my grandparents’ garden.
- I bite into a green apple – a bit sour. I don’t like it.
- The first time I combine an apple part with peanut butter. Delicious.
Context of words and the feelings they evoke.
- I’m thirsty and hungry after a volleyball game. The first bite of an apple – what a relief.
- My grandpa cuts an apple and gives me a part. Safety. Home.
- I eat 2 apples and my mouth starts itching. Allergy? Fear.
When learning another language, you can link words to the context of your mother tongue.
But to truly understand them, you’ll have to create a new context too.
For example, an apple in Spanish: una manzana.
Seemingly the same object, now perceived through new sounds.
- huerto de manzanas (apple orchard)
New actions.
- Yo limpio una manzana. (I wash/clean an apple.)
New images.
- I see una manzana in a Mexican supermarket. Someone is polishing it with wax to make it extra shiny. The first time I saw was in Mexico. So I didn’t see the guy polishing an apple. Vi a un hombre encerando una manzana. (I saw a guy putting wax on an apple.)
New feelings.
- Compré una manzana (I bought an apple) and ate it without washing it well. My stomach wasn’t happy with my actions.
Keeping all that in mind, are we really still talking about the same object? Is the Spanish manzana encerada that made me sick in Spanish the same as the apple my grandpa helped me pick? If it is, do I now have a richer perception of that object that once up on a time, I could only interact with through the limits of one language?
Learning vocabulary lists with isolated words will never get you fluent in a foreign language.
If you don’t build a new context of sounds, actions, images, feelings, you’ll always keep imposing your mother tongue on the foreign language.
That’s why you can’t just learn a foreign language. You have to live it.
#529 Life will show where energy must flow
ByLukasNo one can tell you
Where you should go
But if you trust yourself enough
Then wherever energy must flow
Life will show.
#89 Don’t get it backwards
ByLukasI’m not writing because I can’t write?
I’m not playing the guitar because I’m bad at music?
I’m not learning a language because I’m bad at learning languages?That’s the world on its head.
The truth is: you can’t write because you’re not writing.
You can’t play the guitar because you’re not playing the guitar.
You can’t speak the language because you’re not learning the language.If you would write every day, cognitive dissonance starts doing its work. Your actions will overrule your thoughts and beliefs.
And every day you write, you’re becoming a writer.
Every day you play the guitar, you’re becoming a guitar player.
Every day you learn a language, you’re becoming a language learner.
The only reason you can’t do it because you’re not doing it.
Don’t get it backwards.
#243 Mending the Misunderstanding
ByLukasWe all live in a maze of mistranslations and misunderstandings about who we think you are and who others think we are.
Now, by lack of a way to know who we truly are, misunderstandings can be comforting, my friend; there’s no doubt about that.
But when you get so lost in the maze that it causes suffering, it might be time to start mending the misunderstandings.
Could it be that mending is nothing more than making another mistranslation about who we are that makes us happier?
After all, I can perceive myself as a struggling writer or a skilled wordsmith – both perspectives hold their truths.
It’s the power of our misunderstandings that molds our reality.
#288 The one constraint that makes everything better
ByLukasWhat’s the one Tiny Trust Builder you can do for yourself; one little thing thing that makes you feel good about yourself, and because you feel good, you’re good to other around you too?
What’s that one small constraint YOU decide to put on your day that, when protected fiercely, makes everything else so much better?
And if you know it makes everything better and you aren’t protecting it fiercely yet – why not?
Could you start today?