Beth's Ponderings
I was recently
listening to an online workshop for writers, and one of the tips they gave was
that writers should “cross-train,” meaning that writers should take up dancing
or painting or playing a musical instrument or other creative activity to help
enrich their writing.
My initial thought
when I heard that was, 1. why do we need to label it cross-training, and 2. a
good writer is usually very creative in other areas so shouldn’t need to be
told to add more creativity to their lives.
As a society we
have swung the pendulum so far to the extreme that we not only have to label
everything and everyone, but we have to “specialize” in whatever our interests
are.
Now there are, hard
to believe, people out there who love to be put in a specific box. I think it’s because they then have a really
good excuse for not trying anything new, or doing something that would cause
them to feel like a beginner. “Oh, I can’t
paint, because I’m a writer.” Or, “I’m
sorry, I’m an artist, I don’t dance.”
How silly! We are humans, which means we’re curious, we’re
attracted to new experiences (even if, or because, they are a bit scary), and
we like to try/do lots of different things.
We all know how
monotonous life can get if we have to do the same task over and over and over
again. So why do we think that our
creative expressions have to be in only one form?
Now, I am someone
who resists labels and being put in a specific box. I don’t even really like the labels multi-faceted
or multi-disciplinary as they still are limiting people in a way. I am a human with many interests, and many
ways of expressing those interests - which shouldn’t make me different from the
norm, but means I AM the norm, as that describes all of us.
We’ve all, at some point, seen young children playing. Unless, an adult interferes, they are all over the place - running, skipping, singing, drawing, acting, painting, exploring, and more. We need to stop labelling ourselves and reclaim that child-like freedom of expression.
Beth
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