In my next life I will try to commit more errors. (Jorge Luis Borges)
(out of focus. she hit her head while trying to act serious.)
My mom says “whoopsie poopsie.” She says it often. She needs (heh, heh) to say it often.
I grew up in a family where spilling things, breaking things, and making messes of things were daily, if not hourly, events. My mom attributed it to genes, which somehow excused it all. I don’t know that I was ever reprimanded for that sort of mistake. I come by klutz honestly.
I don’t even remember any fights with my parents over the other mistakes I made as a kid–and there are a few doozies, let me tell you. And I learned from them. What I do remember is a fabulously dramatic fight in which my mom was frustrated with me for not giving “it” my all–Chopin or Calculus or whatever. In what I thought was justified exhasperation, I threw my arms in the air and wailed, “I just want to be average! Can’t you just let me be average?”
It is, after all, easier to just be “average”–to not attempt new things, to not risk making mistakes. Mistakes are punished by teachers, critics, bosses, parents. We fear making them, make them anyway, and then regret them. Whether it’s a sippy cup, an invisible marker, an online compatibility test, an automatic camera setting, a painting technique, any tried-and-true formula–it’s a crutch. And I think these crutches, designed to prevent mistakes, inhibit creativity.
Sure there’s a right way to do a thing. But doing everything the exact precise correct unoriginal way every time… bleah.
Some of the world’s greatest creative geniuses are all about the mistake:
Where you stumble, there lies your treasure. (Joseph Campbell)
Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. (Albert Einstein)
From error to error, one discovers the entire truth. (Sigmund Freud)
So here I am, doing my part to celebrate mistakes. The blog is just thrown together, and will likely evolve. Check out the “About” page. And… join me?
I am so your comrade in klutziness here. My partner calls me “Grace” and is often dumbfounded by my ability to walk into 3 walls on my way to bed. I look forward to hearing your tales of klutz so I can feel a bit better about mine…
Love it Terri. Great post, something I needed to hear today…thank you
I love you T. And you were NEVER average. You will never BE average. Joining you would be an honor…although you may not believe that to be true…wait and see. :~)
I am stuck with above average wife, children and grandchildren the drop, spill, knock over, bump, trip, stumble, dribble, splash, spot, toss, hurl, drool, whine, and forget things all the time. And I love them for it. You just never know what excitement tomorrow will bring.
“Families are like fudge… Mostly sweet with a few nuts.”
Wow! I feel honored — really, I do. That may be the best thing we did as parents. The joke would be that “everything else we did, we screwed up!” but I won’t go there
I’m sure I’ve told you this a million times, but I promised you when you were still in the womb that I would never yell at you, or any future children, for dropping or spilling or falling or stuff like that. I said it after I knocked over a plant (with all the dirt) in my living room while playing football with your dad.
And in more seriousness, I’ve often said that that is the biggest obstacle a teacher faces — the student has a hard time learning if s/he is afraid to make a mistake.
There is no such thing as a mistake. It is a human delusion that, which you said, makes us feel better in hopes that what we just did isn’t part of who we are. Which doesn’t and does go along with what you said.
Thanks to our parents, those ‘mistakes’ weren’t feared or scolded (extremely) but were part of life and what we as humans do.
Mistakes aren’t real. What we do is.
And I like the secret smile in the top right.
I agree, Danny, that mistakes are a delusion… but what people consider “mistakes” are just far too frequently punished. I’m just mixin’ it up here, yo.
secret smile? whatchutalkinbout?
There’s a smile on the far right side, top of the page, about an inch down.