(and maybe some blood and tears)
It’s surprising how many parallels exist between high-grade athletics and top-level creative work. There are strategies that will help optimize, improve, cultivate…but the main ingredients are always the same.
The effort — focused positively and generously — is what matters. The time. The energy. The willingness to try — over and over again.
The readiness to exert, to sweat.
— Death to the Stock Photo, “Sweat”
I’m not an athlete. I will never take home a trophy or medal, and yet, I participate in sports. I run, workout, and go to boxing and kickboxing classes. Although I won’t ever be the best at those things — a fact that helps curb the perfectionism — but I still give them my all. I desire to get better, so I train, study, and rest. I try, over and over again, no matter how many times I fail and no matter how frustrated I get.
Writing is no different, even though I have an aptitude for it. It demands energy and effort. It says to practice the art diligently, to learn from others, and to push toward the next challenge. It’s like a muscle, and, like a muscle, it needs exercise, tutelage, and, yes, rest.
Without the exertion, the writing deteriorates. The talent becomes ever smaller, no better than the one the man buried in the ground. When his master returned, he had nothing to show for his effort, merely a dirt-encrusted coin and a fear of punishment.
The other men differed. They put their talents to work and gained two, six, a hundred-fold more. The master’s reply is telling; he doesn’t reward the one who gained the most or criticize the one with the least. He tells each of them that they are faithful servants and stewards of the talents entrusted to them.
The master cares about the output, but he seems equally attentive to the attention, the exertion, the sweat. He longs for willing servants who take what he has given them and who put it to work for his great glory and name. He desires athletes who run the race set before them, whether the race occurs on a track or in this chair where I sit typing words.
Image: Death to the Stock Photo