Excuse Me While I Sing Into My Hairbrush

Yesterday I went for a run along the beach near my house.
Burned a few cals, got a bit of sun... no biggie... except for the fact that I got a life-lesson from a five year-old.

Here's the scene:
The ex-bodybuilder with the dodgy lower-back running (for want of a more descriptive or accurate term) along the path which borders the sand.
The kid (clearly an architect in the making) just off the path, in the sand building a.... aah.. er... well, building something kinda big and messy looking out of sand and junk.

Kid sees weird-looking guy limping along the track.

Kid: "Waddya doin'?"
CH: "Going for a jog."
Kid: "Why."
CH: "I'm a bit fat."
Kid: "Yeh, you are."
(Gotta love kids).
CH: "Thanks."
CH: "What are you doin'?"

(Fat bloke stops running).

Kid: "I'm building a castle."
CH: "What's that plastic thing?"
(I think it was a lid from an ice-cream container)
Kid: "That's the draw-bridge."
(looks at me like I'm an idiot for not knowing)
CH: "And that big hole thingy?"
Kid: That's gonna be my moat."
CH: "And that?"
(a big lump of wood)
Kid: "That's the tower silly."
CH: "Of course it is, what was I thinking?"
(mother sitting twenty feet away laughing).

I told him his castle was great.
He told me he knew.

I was on my way.

Have you ever noticed how creative kids are?
And how creative we adults (often) aren't.

Well actually, that's not entirely true.
We are inherently creative but we (often) get to an age where we stop creating.
We stop developing and exploring our creativity because we get fearful (about the reaction to our creative endeavours), we get busy (with our often unfulfilling life, situation) and we get too sensible and 'mature' to be our creative selves.

What a pity.

As I left the budding architect up to his elbows in sand and creativity, I pondered how cool it is that five year-olds don't worry about what people think about their castles... like us dumb adults do.

They sing into their hair brushes, they choreograph their own dance routines, they become their favourite super-hero, they build castles out of sand and junk; they express themselves fearlessly.

They make something from nothing.
They Imagine.
They create.
They haven't yet learned the 'lessons' that their (ex-creative) parents have.

Lucky them.

We grown-ups worry about what people think of our castles.
Too much.
So we never build one.

We'd like to.
But we don't.

If I was building that castle a decade ago I would have wanted only the best materials, I would have spent two weeks planning it, I would have employed a builder and I wouldn't let anyone see it, until it was perfect.
And if it wasn't perfect I'd probably pull it down and start again.

Stupid.

I was a perfectionist (not in a good way).

Over the last ten years I have re-connected with creative me.
Fortunately.
(or perhaps unfortunately for you!)
I have stopped stressing about whether or not creative me was good enough to share with the world.

Creative me is happy.
And boring, safe old me actually loves creative me.
Boring, safe old me would never have written, communicated or shared like I do now.
Boring, safe old me wouldn't have taken the risk.
Too precious.
Too egotistical.
Too insecure.

When I wrote my first book I constantly questioned myself.
Boring, safe old me was very good at rationalising why (1) I shouldn't or couldn't write the book and (2) why it would never get published.
Nearly every day people would tell me about the realities and the logistics of getting a book published (especially by an unknown author).

I heard this quote a hundred times:

"Craig, you know that they publish less than one out of every thousand submitted manuscripts right?"

And this one:

"Did you know that if you don't engage them (the publisher) in the first two paragraphs, they won't even read past page one."

Yep; unanimous support from everyone.

Not.

No wonder we stop creating.

Well the bloke who had never written a book and apparently had no hope of getting one published, got five written rejections and then a resounding yes from Australia's second largest publishing house (complete with an advance payment).

Just lucky I guess.

Sometimes we worry so much about what people think about our castles (creative endeavours) that we don't do anything.
We stop expressing ourselves.
We stop singing.
Stop painting, writing and dancing.

The choice we can all make any day of the week is whether or not we will let creative us have a voice.
Too many of us say no.
How sad.

Anyway, that's enough from me... I gotta go jump up and down on my bed and sing into my hairbrush.