100 Day Project - Day Eleven

Sitting at my desk this week, about to start some design work, and I was struck by both the delicious potential in the blank sheet in front of me and the thought that it’s never really a blank sheet I’m faced with. No matter how blank it looks, the perspective I bring to it is never without some existing intentions, influences, impressions…. So when, if ever, is a blank sheet really a blank sheet? When do we ever get to create something completely new and fresh? And does it matter?

I don’t know. There’s all this thinking that says that because in that moment we’re about to combine things in a way that only we can, bringing to it all that we are, that in itself makes it new and unique.

I see can the truth of that but I’m not convinced it’s enough for me some days. Most of what I do feels like an obvious and recognisable echo or evolution of something I’ve done before. Most days that’s fine and I enjoy the synthesis this represents. I’m quite good at synthesis.

Some days I long to create something completely different. I don’t think I’ve ever had a truly original thought. I don’t make leaps of creative thinking. Usually, I just accept that’s the way of things. Some days, I find it deeply disappointing.

I’m mostly future focused and I like to think I can use my imagination. I’m not as bound to reality or the tried & tested as some people and that means I can move into worlds of hypotheticals and experimentation and early adoption quite easily. Too easily sometimes. It’s in that world that dreams live, which sounds grand and lovely, but it’s not all good in that world. It’s in that world that worry and anxiety also live; it’s in that world that all the “could do, should do, must do” stuff lives; it’s in that world that risk lives, and it’s in that world that comparison lives. I’m definitely aware of how energy sapping and pointless all that stuff is. Been there, done that.

So, why even wonder about it? And where does my ego fit into all this? I suspect it’s leading the way in even asking the question. What’s the source of the disappointment? What’s the drive to create something new? Why does it matter to me that I feel I can’t?

In the early hours of this morning, as I was lying staring at my ceiling in the dark, it occurred to me. It’s about escape. Some days I’m just not bought into all the, “you are enough”, you have everything you need”, “whatever you do is unique because you are unique” stuff. I just want to escape. I want relief from all that. It feels heavy. At its most extreme, I don’t want to be me. I don’t want to do the things that I would do. I don’t want to live the life I’m living. Some days even the things that exist on the edge of what I do, the places where I’m stretching and growing into new territory in my spiral, don’t give me enough escape. Enough relief.

These are the moments I call my “small-bag-at-midnight-flit” moments, the times I fantasize about doing a runner, leaving it all behind, reinventing myself on a distant shore. Sometimes that urge is so strong it’s hard to describe. When it comes on on like that, it can take days for me to come back to reality.

Of course, rationally, I know that even if I did this, even it were possible, I still wouldn’t be creating someone entirely new. Wherever I go, I will be there. Parts of myself would be what I built the new me on. Parts of myself I really like. Parts of myself that have been hard-won. And what would I be shedding? Plenty that I would miss. Relationships, experiences, memories, lessons, scars, freckles, all the many layers that have been added on over time. The patina of life. The depths of it all. Nothing to draw on, nothing to synthesise. And synthesis is what I’m good at. The relief would be temporary and then I’d likely just be lost. Untethered. Alone. So maybe an echo and an evolution are fine.

And that blank page, that isn’t really blank… as good as it gets. And quite delicious really.