Anything you can do I can do better . . .

I have a big problem. And I don’t think its an uncommon one. The trouble is, I see something well done, something even incredibly done and I think “man . . . I totally should be able to do that.” When generally, of course, I have no business doing that.

The easiest example to relate to in this realm is that of abstract art. Who hasn’t looked at a painting (or in the more avant-garde regions the unspecific ‘exhibit’) and thought, “Why is this here? I could do that.” The stock response from the classic art defender is generally “well you didn’t they did it first.” And I agree with that to an extent.

I have always thought that about Jackson Pollock’s work. And I have been largely ignorant of it, and still am. However, I did watch an interest documentary about him which made me consider momentarily the journey he took to becoming the painter that became famous.

The big realization for me, was not that he had to painstakingly extract genius from within. Rather, I realized that the guy probably went to work at painting everyday, like a regular person heads to work in the office. Apparently, I assumed that they sort of just spewed whatever they could out in the last few hours of the day before bed. Because that’s usually the way I spew out whatever creative instincts I have (usually in writing—in this blog or otherwise).

And I get frustrated sometimes that I haven’t been able to produce anything out of my efforts. That is, other than a short work (originally a blog post) I sold to a gardening magazine, I haven’t published anything or written anything worth publishing.

The catch is, I haven’t generally worked at producing anything. And while I’d like to think that is the only thing holding me back, reality forces me to that there are other issues involve (talent, work ethic, etc). However, I would like to give it a go at some juncture. I just came to the realization that producing anything of value (in life or creativity) generally takes a fair amount of labor and commitment.