Over the last couple of weeks, I've received apologies from many of you that you haven't been able to contribute anything, along with some kind of self-flagellating comment like "I've been so lazy" or "I've been so busy, sorry I suck."
I'd like to address these concerns, if I may. No apologies are ever necessary! The project was conceived as an invitation to play. There's no obligation or expectation on my end. But I think when we are tempted to apologize for not having been creative, it's really ourselves we're apologizing to. We all have this part of our brain that tells us we "should" be creating, we "should" be doing more with our time, and we feel guilty and beat ourselves up when that doesn't happen.
I submit that this little voice of "should" and "should not" in our head actually paralyzes the creative process or, at the very least, sucks all joy out of it. It would be exciting to see what would happen if we let ourselves off the hook a little bit and foster an environment where we create not because we "should" but because it's fun and we want to!
The six words are like a pilot light, always here and always on, ready to ignite your spark when and if it comes. If you don't submit for one week, or two, or many, you have not failed and you don't need to apologize to anybody (least of all yourself). You haven't fallen behind. There's no such thing.
Please remember that you have this miraculous potential to make something out of nothing at any given moment. That potential isn't going anywhere. Each set of words is a new opportunity, a fresh start, just as each and every moment of every day is a new chance to live creatively. If we live in the past, thinking about what we haven't done yet and branding ourselves a failure for it, instead of opening ourselves up to each new moment as it comes, not only will we never get anything done, but we won't be very happy.
At least that's what I think!
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