Everyday Canvas

Simple or Complex, and NOT Letting Go

Prompt: John Barth said, in a Paris Review Interview, “I start every new project saying, “This one’s going to be simple, this one’s going to be simple.” It never turns out to be.” Do you find it to be true for you as well? Use it in regard to writing or any other thing that you wish.


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Yes and no, for me. Once I start a project, if the project is to my liking, I get so engrossed in it that I don’t feel its complications.

On the other hand, with some writing projects, I find out that a lot more research is needed than I have originally planned. Although this complicates the work, the research is fun, nevertheless.

As to other things, well, take cleaning a room, for example; I sometimes find out that more than the usual attention is needed, but isn’t this due to my sloth in some way? So I try to get on top of anything that happens to eat up more of my time, or I let it go in favor of those things I’d rather do. I think it is up to us to complicate things or not by believing any project to be simple or complex before we have even started it.

By the way, starting any project with the idea of it being simple can be undervaluing that project, in any area. This idea is also limiting, as well as being self-imposed. Nothing in life has defined limits. The way we believe about things, however, do. I look at limiting oneself as to ideas and action to be similar to pushing oneself into a small box that doesn’t have air holes.


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Non- Prompt

I came across this article on the web, titled Reboot Your Life.
Based on Buddhist beliefs, it gives a list of things we should let go to be happy. Under each item in the list, there is an explanation of that item.

Then, while I was reading the article, I thought maybe we shouldn’t let go of those items, but use them in our writing. Now, not every item would apply to every individual, but just imagine, while writing fiction, those things in the items festering inside our characters. From this point of view, this list is more valuable to me than what its writer intended it to be. So I thought of sharing it with you.

Here’s the list without the explanations:

1. Let go of attachments:
2. Let go of guilt:
3. Let go of Negative thinking:
4. Let go of self-criticism:
5. Let go of prejudice:
6. Let go of compulsive thinking:
7. Let go of the need for others’ approval:
8. Let go of limiting beliefs:
9. Let go of grudges:
10. Let go of the “I’ll do it tomorrow” attitude:
11. Let go of anxious thoughts:
12. Let go of past heartbreaks:
13. Let go of bad memories:
14. Let go of useless things:
15. Let go of bad company:
16. Let go of the idea that you are a product of your past:
17. Let go of identifying yourself with your job/role:
18. Let go of counterproductive habits:
19. Let go of taking things too personally:
20. Let go of the ticking clock:

If you wish to read the article itself, its link is:
http://myscienceacademy.org/2014/12/16/reboot-your-life-20-mental-barriers-you-s...