It seems like a simple enough statement, though perhaps a little unhelpful.
I am not a “deep” creative person. The things that I draw and paint are hardly ever a manifestation of some depressing bit of my childhood. Nor are they a reflection on the government, or my feelings on taking out the trash (all of which are negative, I’ll have you know). My writing is usually a little darker, but that helps to get out all those oh-so-cliche angsty teenage feelings. The problem with this, though, is that I often find myself without inspiration. Yes, I could take inspiration from nature, etc. just like every other person. Generally speaking though, the things I make are just doodles turned into something bigger. Thus, I can go for months without making anything worthy of posting on Facebook, and certainly not Deviantart.
Nothing worthy, perhaps, but I am always drawing. If you look at any notebooks from school, or even tests, there are doodles in the margins on every page. If I’m completely honest, there are usually more doodles than notes. I fondly (insert a bit of sarcasm there) remember my high school chemistry teacher reading my notebook and writing in large red letters: NO DOODLES. YOU ARE IN CHEMISTRY, NOT ART CLASS. Funnily enough, he was and is one of my favorite teachers I have ever had. But to get back on topic, I am constantly drawing. Even if I don’t necessarily like what I’ve drawn, it happens constantly. It’s sort of like my interest in photography. Someone once told me,”If you get ten or fifteen good pictures out of 150, you had a good day.” If I get a few good drawings out of a hundred, I’ve had a good month. Sitting here, with a hot cup of coffee, I have decided to change the way I look at my art. In doing so, I’ve come to my next point.
I have recently come to the not so original conclusion that to get better at something, you have to do it. Astonishing, I know. However, I have heard time and time again,”My writing just isn’t good” or “I just can’t paint”. Now, I will preface this by saying some people were truly meant to paint, write, and sing, and some weren’t. Even outside of the art world though, you must do what you love to get better. For example, if I never run I will never be better at it. If I hardly ever run, and I sit around and say,”I just wasn’t meant to run,” of course I won’t get to my 5K. We tend to put blocks up before we ever try things we want to try. “I can’t”, “I’m not meant to”, “But those Cheez Its look so tasty”. Yeah, yeah, we’ve all heard it.
Excuses are something we are very practiced at. In fact, I would say that most people have about 10,000 hours worth of excuses from our whole lives. “10,000 hours? How did you come up with that number?” Well, I didn’t. Author Malcolm Gladwell did in his book Outliers. In this book, Gladwell covers the potential each of us has based on our surrounding and our opportunities, rather than our “intelligence and ambition and personality traits”. In chapter two, The 10,000 Hour Rule, he covers something that most people don’t really think about. First he writes about innate talent:
“…is there such a thing as innate talent? The obvious answer is yes. Not every hockey player born in January ends up playing at the professional level. Only some do – the innately talented ones. Achievement is talent plus preparation. The problem with this view is that the closer psychologists look at the careers of the gifted, the smaller the role innate talent seems to play and the bigger the role preparation seems to play.”
Gladwell then goes on to say that in order to really be proficient at something, innate talent or not, one must practice. How long? 10,000 hours, according to a study done by psychologist K. Anders Ericsson in the early 1990s. The study involved several violinists, each at a different state of proficiency. The first group were those students who had the potential to become “world-class soloists”. The second group were those who were simply “good”. The third group were those who were “unlikely to ever play professionally and who intended to be music teachers in the public school system.” All three groups were asked how long they had played the violin in the course of their career. All of the students in the groups had started at a young age, around five years old. However, as they began to grow, a difference was shown in time taken to practice:
“The students who would end up the best in their class began to practice more than everyone else: six hours a week by age nine, eight hours a week by age twelve, sixteen hours a week by age fourteen, and up and up, until by the age of twenty they were practicing – that is, purposefully and single-mindedly playing their instruments with the intent to get better – well over thirty hours a week. In fact, by the age of twenty, the elite performers had each totaled ten thousand hours of practice. By contrast, the merely good students had totaled eight thousand hours, and the future music teachers has totaled just over four thousand hours.”
Gladwell gives several other examples of those “elite” who totaled ten thousand hours, including the likes of Bill Joy, Bobby Fischer, Bill Gates, and the Beatles. Now, I’m hardly saying that I’m going for elitism. I don’t really want to be an elite runner, artist, or writer. I am okay with falling into the “good” category for any of those. However, Gladwell helps to drive home the point that practice at least gets you much closer to perfect.
So, as I sit here with my now cold coffee, I will continue to doodle. I will continue to write. Why? I want to get closer to perfection. Again, not elite, but good. I will create and create again. We have always been told that practice makes perfect. Malcolm Gladwell simply puts it in book form. Once you get out of those ten thousand hours of excuses, it’s a lot easier to start working on your ten thousand hours of something you really want to do.
Time for more coffee.
Disco Pants & Toast 