The swing it is...

Looks like they're having fun, right?

They spent at least ten straight minutes, maybe more, on the thing.  Back and forth, back and forth.  Up and down.  To them it felt sky high.

When was it for you that swings started making you nauseous instead of happy?

It's an equilibrium thing.  Swings make us nervous as we age because we begin to understand the mechanics of the thing.  We start getting what's at stake.  Add to that an inner ear that's gotten used to things on the straight and narrow and flat and you've got a recipe for sickness.

It struck me that it's very similar with our work in the creative arts and in the pulpit.

When we start it's all a thrill.  Every time we get to step up and do our thing it fair strips the dignity right out of us with excitement.  You can't wait to get at it.  Even the prep work is fun as we study a text, find a hook, break it down, craft it.  Same with TV and Film.   I remember when editing was fun--I couldn't believe that I was in an actual edit suite cutting something that people were actually going to see.

(I still love the set, every bit of it, even the grumpy grips...)

Then, somewhere along the way, it stops being fun and starts being work.

I don't know if it happens all at once--seems more a gradual thing to me.  And I don't know that once it hits it sticks forever--seems more an ebb and flow tide-like thing to me.  But it does seem, from my limited experience that the more you ebb the less you flow.  Over time a once verdant river delta can become a badlands.

So how do I keep finding ways to do the 'first works' (to turn a Biblical phrase), how do I stay 'in love'? How do I find inspiration again and again and translate said inspiration into traction that becomes work--good work?

A key for me is to work slow and find spaces in my day for breaks.  Space just to breathe a bit and be aware.

It's in those quiet moments that you notice things.

Like your son and his cousin loving life on a swing.

T