Avalanche

Write like an avalanche somehow missing the skier.

I don't remember where I first read this quote, and I am almost sure it had been in the context of a joke, yet for some reason I jotted it down a bright pink post-it note and hang it on a wall right beside my desk. Sometimes I glance at it for a second and laugh.

I have no idea what it means.

I always had these mixed feelings about inspirational quotes on any craft (writing, illustration, composition, you pick); you know, like Hemingway's "all you do is sit at a typewriter and bleed" or that one that says "art is anything you can get away with". They do sound at first like they hold some truth or illumination but later on in life you end up discovering they were just stating the obvious, making metaphors to lessons we would end up learning with practice anyway.

But past this sour arrogance of "ugh, self-help shit", I see how they fill a gap when we are starting to explore something new; some sort of reminder that won't really improve anything in your skills but serve as a nudge. A teenie weenie itsy bitsy dose of courage, for those who need it. I came to think that creating something, whatever it is, takes some amount of courage. And most times, when we are new to a craft, we are so oblivious to that. To how much of yourself is exposed in anything you create.

With time, liking or not, I had my share of quotes that actually... worked. Some of them served me right where they were needed, the right amount of courage in the right moment. Some just sounded like an incontestable truth and took me ages to understand and absorb them - some I never did. And others just make me laugh, like the one with the avalanche, and for whatever reason those I don't forget.

There is room, of course, to wonder whether this isn't just a millennial thing, this generation of mine who absolutely adores Pinterest and dreaming of big accomplishments (perhaps as a defensive response to the sheer despair of being part of a generation who is economically unable to abide to previous expectations of success but also has no clue what are their own values; anyways, gen Z is here to save the day). Perhaps it is fair to finally admit I need some self-help deep inspirational material, even if I don't understand them, to make sure I always have fuel to keep going. I hope to somehow miss the skiers on the way.

-Maíra