it's easy to know when youre not ready, however transitioning into being "ready" is rather like navigating the moratorium state from adolescent to adult. for some this period can become long and protracted, or is revisited later in mid-life when buying a porsche seems like a splendid idea.
readiness is part intuition, part conscious decision, making it easier for self and others to question, analyze, doubt, rinse and repeat. as children, we feel the uncomfortable tummy grumbles and cry, whine and request food (a behaviour i diligently continue to practice into my 30's). we play hide and seek, counting "ready or not, here i come". graduating from nappies to the potty and then toilet there is the cry of "i'm readeeeeeeee!" to the lucky parent on 'wiping duty' to come and positively reinforce, coo, aaaah and complete the task.
not feeling "ready" can certainly be a way to avoid making a comittment, however decisions as an adult are less physically messy, unless the aforementioned adult has graduated to incontinence knickers. perhaps this is the reason that the progression from pencil, to ink pen with the magic eraser function at school was so exciting. there was always the option to erase the ink; nothing was quite indelible. the smudgeproof and waterproof sharpie then begins to feel like the writing implement of adulthood.
the fact is, a thick stick of charcoal on a big piece of white paper sometimes creates marks you planned, and sometimes not; the implicit "risk" and reward of creativity. often there is an unrecognizable mess, but this generally evolves into 'form' over the next few pages, or sketchbooks. i am beginning to get into my thick head that this is the point at which letting go and having a little faith that, in spite of the messes made, feeling "ready", and deciding "ready", are superceded by favouring neither. i dont know many parents who hovered over the 'early years elimination' with an egg timer harassing an "im finished".
2 comments:
(To Author) I gotta say what it was that immediately struck me when I first visited your weblog - forgive me if you happen to focus on what might seem a critical point - that thing that struck me being the ambiguity of the position from where you are addressing what are undoubtedly very personal concerns/questions in what read as diary entries (meaning, they're written to yerself as immediate audience) insofar as they are, as I said parenthetically a moment ago, clearly speaking 'clearly' to something, but are only really written as to be decipherable by you and you alone. Again, this is not to be a (negatively) critical observation; it is, rather, an acknowledgment of what I think that I see and is familiar to me, although the details are, of course, not.
(To Reader) This is what originally and immediately struck me when I visited the site of a stranger who had contacted me (peripherally) via this very avenue - the blogger, that is.
A well written and thought-provoking post, Disa.
Relatedly, an astute analysis by kicker of elves. Your posts are indeed like personal diary entries, which makes the reader pay more attention to them in a bid to decipher where you - Disa -is 'coming from'.
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