Painted Warrior - Trapped in the Idea
by K. L. Van der Veer
You know what I like most about painting? The idea of how it will look when I finish. I look at my new, white windows with and imagine how wonderful and inviting the living room be once the old, stained trim is covered in a new coat of white paint. I tell people about my plan, and they respond with enthusiastic accolades for my vision. I don’t like sanding the old trim. I don’t like taping the windows. I don’t like priming, sanding, priming some more, painting, sanding, and painting. I may not even be as satisfied with the result I produce as with the image I created in my mind. So it’s easy not to start and enjoy the experience of imagining how it will look.
Writing, in fact any art, is like this as well. We get so much satisfaction from what we imagine the finished product will be like and how much we think everyone will love it, that we often don’t bother taking on the project. Or, if we do, we don’t finish because the work-in-progress is not living up to the work imagined. We set it aside to think about it some more. We plan to get back to it, and that plan combined with our imagined greatness of its completed glory and the support of others for grand design sustains us, and our life is spent in that in-between place…inspired limbo.
So, too, is it with those in the stories who could be heroes. Everyone dreams of a better life, of being free from the evil overlord. But why does a whole community, city, kingdom sit and do nothing? For the same reason that we do not write our story. Most dream. Some make plans. A few work to gather support. But there is only a handful, maybe even just one, who is not sustained by the idea, reaches beyond the dreams, grabs hold of the possibility, and shakes it into reality. What makes that one different? What does she see or feel that the rest of us don’t?
There is no answer than can be explained or taught so that it can truly be understood. Part of it involves letting go of the future, of what could be, and living for a new now. The hero lets it all go and lives for each step, knowing that she can take another one and another, ready to accept what she has wrought for that moment. But these are just words. You have to finish that project in order to understand.
Me? My windows are painted.
You know what I like most about painting? The idea of how it will look when I finish. I look at my new, white windows with and imagine how wonderful and inviting the living room be once the old, stained trim is covered in a new coat of white paint. I tell people about my plan, and they respond with enthusiastic accolades for my vision. I don’t like sanding the old trim. I don’t like taping the windows. I don’t like priming, sanding, priming some more, painting, sanding, and painting. I may not even be as satisfied with the result I produce as with the image I created in my mind. So it’s easy not to start and enjoy the experience of imagining how it will look.
Writing, in fact any art, is like this as well. We get so much satisfaction from what we imagine the finished product will be like and how much we think everyone will love it, that we often don’t bother taking on the project. Or, if we do, we don’t finish because the work-in-progress is not living up to the work imagined. We set it aside to think about it some more. We plan to get back to it, and that plan combined with our imagined greatness of its completed glory and the support of others for grand design sustains us, and our life is spent in that in-between place…inspired limbo.
So, too, is it with those in the stories who could be heroes. Everyone dreams of a better life, of being free from the evil overlord. But why does a whole community, city, kingdom sit and do nothing? For the same reason that we do not write our story. Most dream. Some make plans. A few work to gather support. But there is only a handful, maybe even just one, who is not sustained by the idea, reaches beyond the dreams, grabs hold of the possibility, and shakes it into reality. What makes that one different? What does she see or feel that the rest of us don’t?
There is no answer than can be explained or taught so that it can truly be understood. Part of it involves letting go of the future, of what could be, and living for a new now. The hero lets it all go and lives for each step, knowing that she can take another one and another, ready to accept what she has wrought for that moment. But these are just words. You have to finish that project in order to understand.
Me? My windows are painted.
posted by K. L. Van der Veer | 3:22 PM
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