"Madness, or Brilliance"
Will Turner’s expression mirroring exactly how my inner critic responded to my ‘Year of creative living’ challenge - Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, 2003
The overwhelming magnitude of the tasks I outlined last Wednesday tempted me towards regret as soon as it was published. Being public, my tasks become significantly harder to back away from. I know that was the point, but I have tried similar regimes before, and failed. The autopsies of those attempts revealed that trying to do everything everyday was guaranteeing disaster. I’d have all the energy for the first week or so, then a single bad day would come, the black dogs would bark, or a migraine would hit. I’d be unable to complete the list, or even do any of it and then BAM! The streak was broken. I had failed to do everything every day. I might try start again but the next streak would be shorter after my failed attempt and so, discouraged, I’d have less fight.
That’s been the temptation, to give in to those thoughts of discouragement. “You have tried this before and it didn’t work, why is this time different?”
Because I haven’t tried this before.
This time I have given myself space to be human, to have bad days and migraines and made space for all manner of streak breaking things. This time I have invited you to become involved, to witness my successes and failures in full gory detail. This time I am focused on living a more creative life rather than simply ticking as many boxes in a row as I can. The numbers are “more like guidelines anyway” (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, 2003). Even if I finish this up now, today, I will have spent the last two weeks with more intentional creativity than I have had in my life for months. A beautiful change from living the peaks and valleys of life vicariously through media consumption, creativity is the best way to experience those emotions and moments fully for myself. As the Irish playwright and Noble prize winner George Bernard Shaw wrote, “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” Too long have I waited for the answers to come to me, too long have I hoped that I would wake up magically in the fullness of my potential, too long have. . .can you tell I watched Pirates of the Caribbean recently?
Back to the topic at hand, this week has been full of emotions. Overwhelm has been prominent. The cooking goal has been a nightmare to organise. Turns out this cookbook is not as easy as “I will cook this one recipe today and that will be it.” Most recipes will use others in the book as a base, or as an ingredient, then there are serving suggestions that sound perfect to go with it but also have their own cooking times, resting times and whole recipe ingredients. At least 285 recipes will not be 285 days of cooking, but it may take that long to figure out the order of attack. It already stole much of the time I was hoping to spend on the other fun things. This then caused fear to arise that I had chosen too many things to do and maybe I should whittle it down. I am barely into my second week, and not even at the end of a whole once since posting my intentions and already I am being tempted to quit? My inner critic is, as my Nana used to say, a “right fearful sod”. What I do know to be true is that whenever your entire body and mind freak out over a decision you have either done “something incredibly stupid” (there I go again) or are embarking on something extremely wonderful. . . Time will tell.
“This is either madness, or brilliance.” – Will Turner
“It’s remarkable how often those two traits coincide.” – Jack Sparrow
THE RUNDOWN
Art - I have completed two art pieces (scribbles more like), one drawing and one painting as shown above.
Writing – No movement on the novel yet . . . However, from the blog, the count is at 1848 words
Cooking - I decided for Day One, I would cook two fruit-based savoury dishes and a vegetable-based sweet. Asparagus with strawberry sauce; rockmelon (cantaloupe) soup with cashew crème, and butternut pumpkin (squash) muffins. Yup, I know, I was scared too. Turns out they are not too bad! Would never have picked any of those recipes to work from title alone but the flavours were moreish, and seconds were had.
Music - One dilemma I have been stewing on, I can show evidence for my other five goals, but how do I show off music practice? Which I have been doing. I mean without subjecting you to videos of my every mistake and missed note. If any of you have ideas, please help . . . ?
Photography – Coming on Wednesday with the next update
Craft – Some of you may already know I make jewellery. Shown are four pairs of earrings I made this week as well as the board on which to display them.