Essays

by Scribe Leaf Library · 1 min read · 1 view

Somewhere along the way we decided that competence should arrive before the attempt, and I think this is quietly ruining a lot of good work before it starts. Watch a child learn to walk and you'll notice nobody suggests they wait until they can do it well. They fall, constantly, in front of an audience, without shame, because shame about falling is a skill we teach later, not one we're born with. Somewhere between five and twenty-five, most of us learn to protect ourselves from the sight of our own bad first drafts, bad first attempts, bad first anything — and in doing so, we quietly stop attempting things we can't already do. The people I know who make things — real things, finished things — share one unglamorous trait: they were willing to be bad at it in front of themselves for long enough to get less bad. Not talented from day one. Just willing to keep the door open on the badness long enough for something better to walk through it. That tolerance, not talent, is usually the actual scarce resource.