Thursday, July 7, 2022
What’s remarkable about anyone who creates a masterpiece is in looking at what came before the masterpiece was created. The first fruits of any master creator (even Mozart or Bach) pale in comparison to the future generations of harvest. The first fruits are nothing but labor, dogged repetition, and a depletion of energy. What does it take to finally get a masterpiece, to become the leading authority, or to be the revered expert? Lots and lots of effort followed by the first fruits, which are not much more than junk.
Eventually effort will transmute into the golden swan, and a masterpiece will materialize. Don’t devalue your effort, it’s how a celebrated artiste gets started. There are so many people that simply don’t even begin, or they give up when they see no golden apples in their first few harvests. Results are hidden in the efforts themselves, refined in the disciplines of repetition, and compounded over time.
Your masterpiece will evolve eventually, and it will come after a bunch of effort and some worthless, initial crap. A masterpiece takes a million hours to produce, but not in one sitting. Devote yourself to the daily disciplines of effort, repeat them and notice the improvement each time you return to what you love. That’s all it takes, really. Eventually your effort will produce something that someone will notice. Your first fruits are likely to be junk, but the world has room for them. It’s your “do-nothings” that are wasteful. Just keep putting in the effort, rinse and repeat. Your effort will eventually produce a masterpiece, but don’t ridicule the work or the junk that first comes out on the assembly line. And for God’s sake, don’t stop working – the work itself is getting you there, don’t forget to acknowledge the effort. Your masterpiece is bound to show up one day, just keep up the effort.