Sidewalk Chalk & Thomas Edison

This evening I attended a pig roast at the college where I work. Some of the kids in attendance were playing / drawing with sidewalk chalk. I was amazed at the creativity of those young ones! They drew some very cool stuff.

Alas, I have not got an artistic bone in my body. So I watched them work with a certain degree of pensive longing. I've often wished I could muster some sort of creative outlet, but most attempts I've made have been dismal and sad, so I stopped. Yet, watching those kids at work, it occurred to me that they were not the least bit concerned over whether their pictures were "good enough" for any standards other than the joy it brought them to create.

It made me want to re-think what things I will try or not try. Granted, I will never have the talent or skill of Julian Beaver, but that doesn't mean I couldn't have fun exploring the process.

Years ago I did some substitute teaching in an elementary school for a while. When I taught the first and second graders, if I asked a question like "who likes to draw?" or "who enjoys singing?" nearly every hand in the room shot up. They all wanted to make a picture for me or sing their favorite ditty - so eager and full of promise. But when I taught the fifth graders or eighth graders, responses to questions like that were far more scattered and timid. By that point kids had already begun to define themselves in terms of their deficiencies, saying "no way, I really suck at that!"

All too often we list what we lack instead of savoring our strengths...and we learn to move away from those areas where we have a few failures.

I am reminded of Thomas Edison...when he
was trying to find just the right material to use for the filament in light bulbs he had many, MANY failures. After literally dozens of tries without success some people encouraged him to quit and move on to something else. Instead, Edison stated: "Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work." Another great Edison quote is: "Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

Things I have started and not finished are MANY: learning to draw, to play the piano, to speak Spanish, to Waltz, to sew. I HATE feeling incompetent so when I've tried something for a while with minimal success I tend to move back to my cushy comfort zone of the things I am good at. MASTERY is one of the most reinforcing feelings I know. But looking at that, I see what a limiting pattern that is. How can I learn or grow unless I learn to tolerate my own bumbling feeble attempts at new things?

Maybe its time for me to rethink some of my standards and expectations for myself. Not every art project has to be the Cistine chapel. Not every song has to rival Erna Sack.

Yeah, that sounds great. Yet even as I try to muster up the courage to begin again with art, with music, with dance, or any number of other areas I've tried before and had less than stellar results, I feel my gut turn to water with embarrassment at looking like a fool. I inwardly cringe and want to creep back to my cage of the few things where I feel certain and safe. How do I interrupt that pattern and get the gumption to establish a new paradigm for myself? I don't really know.

It SOUNDS very reasonalbe to say "even though I may not ever be great any any of these things I can have a great experience learning to express myself along the way." But in practice, I balk time and time again. The emotions that come with being the last kid picked for every school team, the wallflower left standing alone at the dance, the pathetic wretch whose attempts to create inevitably turn out to be mediocrity in the extreme....these are such a powerful impedement to trying again.

How to jump that hurdle? I don't know yet. But I aim to keep looking. I want to learn how to grap on to just a touch more of that Edison tenacity. I want to learn how to let go of the fear of "getting it wrong" or looking like a fool and be willing to give myself a chance to try as many times and in as many ways as it may take. Maybe the place to start is with a bit of sidewalk chalk.