This thought about mistakes made me think of a piece on ideas by Nick Cave.
He said, "Ideas are timid things, in my experience. They come as whispers and you need to hold them in honest regard in order to receive them."
It seems to me that an idea might disguise itself as a mistake. It's a way for it to quietly sneak up on you. If you're prepared to consider the mistake and see it for what it might be, then you're allowing that idea in.
I’m not sure that mistakes and chance are the same thing. When Cage threw his pebbles on to paper to draw where they fell he must have known that wasn’t altogether chance. Ok it was chance where they landed, but he threw them expecting them to land on the paper. Pouring paint the same, there’s an element of control. I feel that mistakes are things which happen unexpectedly and unplanned, and are often unfortunate, whereas chance has an element of predictability. Clearly some mistakes in one’s work are welcome and can lead to new exploration, ‘new ideas in disguise’ but if they’re really not what you want to say then isn’t it better to rectify them.
This thought about mistakes made me think of a piece on ideas by Nick Cave.
He said, "Ideas are timid things, in my experience. They come as whispers and you need to hold them in honest regard in order to receive them."
It seems to me that an idea might disguise itself as a mistake. It's a way for it to quietly sneak up on you. If you're prepared to consider the mistake and see it for what it might be, then you're allowing that idea in.
https://www.theredhandfiles.com/creativity-disappears-coax-it-back/
I’m not sure that mistakes and chance are the same thing. When Cage threw his pebbles on to paper to draw where they fell he must have known that wasn’t altogether chance. Ok it was chance where they landed, but he threw them expecting them to land on the paper. Pouring paint the same, there’s an element of control. I feel that mistakes are things which happen unexpectedly and unplanned, and are often unfortunate, whereas chance has an element of predictability. Clearly some mistakes in one’s work are welcome and can lead to new exploration, ‘new ideas in disguise’ but if they’re really not what you want to say then isn’t it better to rectify them.
"Mistakes are new ideas in disguise" - love this! Thanks for this essay