My Philosophy

I recently read (and by read I mean skim random pages because between two children, dishes, laundry, yardwork, garage sale, fair season, garage renovation, and work there isn't much time left for reading a book with more than 32 pages) the book "52 Projects: Random Acts of Everyday Creativity." And in the introduction I found the philosophy of my life the words I could never write. All through my house I have projects in various stages of progress but that never stops me from starting another one and here is why:

I feel the most alive when I am creating something.

I live for those times when its well after midnight, and with sore shoulders I'm hunched over the kitchen table working on a project, bleary-eyes but clearly focused on the task at hand, tired but having no desire to hit the sack. Or when I'm on an evening run through the park, huffing and puffing my way through five miles of pavement-pounding exercise, and the only thing I'm thinking about is the concept of my idea for a project - connecting the dots from the list of needed materials to what it looks like at the moment of the unveiling - every other though and worry pushed aside by the effort to keep on running, keep on breathing, faster and faster, farther and farther, one foot in front of the other as the idea for my project crystallizes and becomes complete in my mind. And of course the feeling I have when I finish a project - despite having to battle back worries that its not good or that I could've done better - there's a powerful sense that if I put my mind to it, I can do anything, anything at all.

Thats why I'm always working on projects. I like the way the process of creating a project makes me feel, the things that I learn, how it energizes and inspires me, the opportunities I find within each step along the way, and, of course, the end result.

Now if only I could get to that end result more often. :O)