A couple of days ago I heard a great snippet of information. Apparently, when the band 10cc made their track ‘I’m not in love’, they didn’t know what an enormous hit it would be, but they did realise that they had made a pretty great song. So they used to lie on the floor, in the dark, in their studio, listening to the music they had made.
I think that is brilliant.
I can’t speak for anyone else but I know that I often spend so long trying to make the things I create worthy of being seen or consumed by others that I forget to take any pleasure in them myself.
I find myself trying so hard to ensure that my art, cooking, writing, knitting and even what I say out loud to the world at large, is acceptable, is of a high enough quality to not be dismissed, ridiculed or lost in the everyday noise, that I forget to enjoy it myself…I even forget to simply enjoy the fact that I can do those things, let alone rejoice in what does get produced.
In the first few days of this new year I have read of at least three people who try to decide upon a Word For The Year. To be used as a totem against procrastination, an affirmation to see them through whatever gets throw at us this time, maybe even a reminder of the hope we began with.
This year I shall be joining them, as an experiment, but my word will be 10cc. I’m going to try to remember to relish my fluffy knitting, savour my puffy pastry, joyfully wrestle my fingers across keyboards and delight in being able to still string words together into sentences.
If anybody needs me I’ll be over there, probably lying on the floor.
(Featured image thanks to unsplash.com)
The Errant Moon 
Thank you. The process of making is so overwhelming, we sometimes need a reminder that we made something.
We do indeed! (The one exception to this is fluffy socks…I always enjoy having made those 🙂)
❤
This is great. I definitely need reminding to enjoy what I create and to also try to enjoy the creation itself, if that is possible. I’m normally lost in a state halfway between concentration and a daze while I am making somethng. What’s the opposite of mindfulness? Then afterwards I’ll be noticing all the little flaws and how it’s not good enough for other people to see. I like to make perfection the enemy of everything. At no point is there any enjoyment. I will try a bit harder though. It might just be me but that photo of 10cc makes me not want to lie down in the dark with them.
You have opened an entire can of worms there…good luck with that 🙂
“joyfully wrestle my fingers across keyboards” More of Keystone Kops over here. Have never been a good typist.
I’m like a hen pecking at seed on a manual keyboard but give me a touch screen and I glide like some poor creature stuck on a frozen pond.
I love that image of lying on the floor and just enjoying the creation!
I’ve really being doing it and it really works! I am much happier with my creative output because I’ve bothered to take the time to appreciate it…not always from the floor though 😁