Teaching Yourself

If you've never rowed 2000 meters (Also known as the 2K) on a rowing machine before, let me tell you about it.

If you want to simplify it, there are two ways to approach rowing this distance.

You can just row as hard as possible (not recommended) or you can have a strategy (highly recommended).

In my recent attempt at this distance, I had a strategy.

I broke the row down into four segments of 500 meters each.

The bookends (segments one and four) would be about speed, and the middle (segments two and three) would be about survival.

Before getting on the machine, I had goals for my time for each segment. I tried my very best to visualize those goals.

Then I sat down to row.

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Anytime we plan to do something with intention, a part of us tries to imagine how it might go.

Then we actually do the thing.

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Segment one went to plan. I was feeling good.

Then as I settled into segment two, I realized that I may have bit off more than I could chew.

My body instantly told me that what I had imagined in my head was not what it was ready to deliver in reality.

Segments two and three did not go to plan.

I somehow found something in segment four to recover some ground and get somewhat close to plan.

How long I took to row this most recent 2K isn't the point of this post.

The point is, I've always found a gap—even a small one—between what we envision before doing the thing, and what we face when doing the thing.

This gap, is everything.

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Making art provides uncomfortably accurate feedback about that gap that inevitably exists between what you intended to do, and what you did. In fact, if artmaking did not tell you so enormously much about yourself, then making art that matters to you would be impossible.

From the book Art & Fear

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When we imagine ourselves doing something with intention, we're essentially making a prediction.

We're predicting how a future version of us will behave/act/perform in a certain situation.

When we're wrong—which we often are—it literally means there was an error in our prediction.

Luckily for us, learning occurs through the process of error correction.

We just have to be open to the idea that there is something to learn.

Keep teaching yourself about you.

Keep making art that matters.