When we start a new play, I’m always filled with dread and excitement. – Lana Lesley
To attempt something new always produces a sense of dread and excitement. What if I fail? What if I can’t do it? What of the work to come? The hours spent learning a new craft or honing an existing one?
Those questions are met with others: What if I succeed? What if, in the attempt, I change or the work becomes something I never could have dreamed or thought of? What of the joy found in dedicating myself to the work? What of the thrill found in learning a new craft or strengthening my core?
The questions are ever at play when the opportunity to do something new arises. They reside within me, a sort of duality. I can sense the presence of the one even as I choose to listen to the other.
I start the next project. Like Lana Lesley, the matter isn’t a question of “if” but “when.” When I start a new drawing, a new piece of writing, a new anything, the hesitation to begin is there. I feel a sense of dread counteracted by a sense of excitement, the wonder found in asking “what if?”
I settle into the work and begin. I don’t know what will happen. It could flop, but it could surprise me. It could become something other than I imagined. It could send me on a journey.
Image: Oscar Rethwill (Creative Commons)