“I’ve looked at life from both sides now, from up and down and still somehow, it’s life’s illusions I recall, I really don’t know life at all.”
-Joni Mitchell
Whatever you are doing right now, no matter how good at it you are, or how long you have been doing it, you are at the beginning.
It’s best that we all just acknowledge this fact and get used to it. This could take a little time, more likely a lot. It will most certainly take loads of practice.
The great thing is - the practice is the point.
In essence, there really are no true masters of any art, craft, science, sport, or trade.
But what about people like Mozart, or Einstein, or Johnny Unitas, or Jimmy Buffett (OK, maybe I meant Warren Buffett..)?? How about Helen Keller or Agatha Christie??
Surely these people were or are possessed of the genius molecules and particles in mega-quantities!
Though Mozart might have been all too eager to claim that he was indeed special, above the fray, most of the others have been known to be pretty humble when it comes to their remarkable, at least noteworthy, accomplishments. Mozart still had so much music left in him when tuberculosis claimed him at only thirty-eight. He died at the entrance to possible mastery.
Einstein not only developed the Theory of Relativity (E = MC squared, for those who fell asleep in class), he imbued physics and science as a whole with a distinctive personality. Plus, he had the wild cotton candy hair and the signature vacant stare (now we have at least some idea of what he was thinking about). He himself knew only too well that he was merely scratching the surface.
Johnny Unitas transported football from the level of simply a sport or athletic activity to that of an art form. Yes, Johnny was a Picasso for the game of football, I may as well just state it. Joe Namath, on the other hand, was probably more an Andy Warhol. Both are fascinating, both eternal students.
Warren Buffett figured out a way to generate a net worth well into the tens of billions and he still hasn’t even hinted at retirement! Maybe it’s because he’s so involved with his day to day passion of buying companies and stock investing that he doesn’t even pay attention to his own personal fortune. Who knows? He’s just getting started.
Helen Keller had every reason to give up, which meant to her, as it turns out, every reason to persevere. Who says you need to be able to hear, speak, and see in order to become an author and lecturer at Harvard? She came to see her “lot” as a “gift”. That was her beginning. Ever see Arthur Penn’s “The Miracle Worker”? If not, I could not recommend a film more. That could mark your beginning.
Agatha Christie wrote well over a hundred mystery novels, none of which I have read, but how can you not respect that? Talk about stamina! I am sure that if you were to have congratulated her on the number of books she had written, she would have said something like, “Thank you but I still feel as though I am just learning my craft and getting my bearings.”
This feeling of being at the beginning, even after putting in so many hours, months, and years into your passion, can undoubtedly be daunting and cause occasional self-doubt to creep in. That is fine. Eventually those feelings will give way to the sensation of total freedom. Once you come around to the truth of it, you will, I bet, begin wearing the Absolute Beginner badge with pride and confidence, knowing that you are part of an exclusive group, to which we all belong.
Join us.
