All art [creativity, living, effort] is a work in progress. It’s helpful to see the piece we’re working on as an experiment. One in which we can’t predict the outcome. Whatever the result, we will receive useful information that will benefit the next experiment.
If [we] start from the position that there is no right or wrong, no good, or bad, and creativity is just free play with no rules, it’s easier to submerge [ourselves] joyfully in the process of making things.
We’re not playing to win, we’re playing to play. And ultimately, playing is fun. Perfectionism gets in the way of fun. A more skillful goal might be to find comfort in the process. To make and put out successive works with ease.
Oscar Wilde said that some things are too important to be taken seriously. Art is one of those things. Setting the bar low, especially to get started, frees [us] to play, explore, and test without attachment to results.
This is not just a path to more supportive thoughts. Active play and experimentation until we’re happily surprised is how the best work reveals itself.
Rubin, Rick. The Creative Act: A Way of Being. Penguin Press, 2023. P. 78