Hello.
What do you think of when you hear ‘practice makes perfect’?
I, for one, have some skepticism. ◡̈ I know it is all in good spirits. Motivational propaganda with good intentions. But for the sake of this conversation, let’s toss it into hell anyway and see what else we can come up with!
I don’t want perfection to be something that is even achievable. Perfection is also boring. So, rather than visioning practice all the way through to the possibly resulting perfection, product, or purpose, what about just practice in itself, isolated in a magical world of its own? Can the process be separate from the end result?
What about… practice IS perfect. The way it is. Already. All of the time.
Practice reminds you of the perfection that already exists. It all goes to the same place.
The day after I decided this would be what I would write about next, my partner unwrapped a package and plopped a book down on the table “The Path is the Goal” by Chögyam Trungpa. Sweet timing!
On page 9 he talks about time. Specifically, wasting time. More specifically, the discomfort around wasting time.
Last week in my studio I ran some experiments with natural dye made from goldenrod in my yard, and making my own pigments from the leftover dye bath. It takes many hours of tending to warm water, monitoring temperature, observing, waiting for things to evaporate, dry, and such. Such a slow, beautiful process. My studio is filled with experiments but not a lot of new “art pieces” at the moment. So what!
Although I will use what I have learned in furthering my practice, this practice wasn’t “for” any particular project. It’s kind of scary to do something that’s not for something, right? Someone might say that I wasn’t very productive but I feel prepared to argue the opposite because of how I define productivity these days. When I practice in a way that feels like just literal practice, I love it. It’s actually my favorite place to be. Deep in reverie and boundless curiosity.
So back to page 9. As a response to the inevitable question regarding sitting practice ‘what is this for’? and the notion (that is all too natural to us) about wasting time if we aren’t doing something for a purpose, this passage appears:
Give time a rest. Let it be wasted. Create virgin time, uncontaminated time, time that hasn’t been hassled by aggression, passion, and speed.
Oh my god. Read that a few times though.
Wasting time on purpose feels like a radical re-claiming of power especially as far as creative freedom is concerned.
Differentiate.
Can you think of times in your practice (creative practice, or any kind of practice, work, or thing you do) when you’ve been working toward a clear goal? Visualize that, feel what it feels like. Familiar? And, can you locate times when you just practiced just to be in relationship with only the practice part?
My guess is that most of us spend more time in the first category and it’s easier to locate the feeling of that experience. And I’m not saying abandoning that is the answer. I am just offering encouragement to try to be with practice as itself too. To let practice be practice. Give it your unconditional attention, whether there is a plausible end reward or not.
See practice as a world of its own, and be in that world more often.
Love ya, keep going.
♡ Kristen