The First page
Disclaimer:Artwork not by me..
"I can feel it. Like an invisible force hovering around my head. Whispering into my ears that it must be perfect. My beginning. The beginning of my story must be one without faults."
It's a New Year, and undoubtedly everyone will be writing up their list of goals, making the New Year resolutions. Same as I. Despite my complete ambivalence towards the celebrations (which might be due to my pseudo-solitary lifestyle), it still feels like a fresh start for me. A new page to create whatever I want my world to be. But with it came that oh-so familiar feeling I get every time I feel like here's another opportunity to start anew.
It's a constant feeling of perfectionism. How the first page of this new endeavor must be perfect. If the goal is to write a book, then it must be one worthy of winning the Nobel prize. If it is to learn a skill, my first foray into it must be enough for me to become a maestro. If I am taking software engineering classes, then I should be able to create the next Facebook within a month. In the same vein, if the goal is to start a blog, then I must get a thousand subscribers within the first month.
As far back as my memory serves, I have always been ambitious. Sometimes the scale of my ambitions scare me. But deep down it never seemed impossible to me. That might be my delusions speaking, but at least it's mine. I never consider my ambitions to be dreams. To me, they are reality trapped in time. And with the ambitions comes a certain absence of patience, especially with myself. I never give myself space to learn fully. If I don't get it on my first trial, then to continue will be an Herculean task.
But with time comes clarity. And I have learn to accept that no one cares about the first page. It doesn't matter if it's beautiful or ugly. Doesn't matter if it was perfect or not. What only matters is the end. Is your story worth it? Leafing through one page after the other to get to the final page. The one that shows the result of all your efforts. There will always be pressure for the first page to be perfect, but the end will always justify the means.