You Are a Magician
When I was in third grade, I had to write a poem with a fall theme.
Mine was something like:
Leaves turn brown
Leaves fall down
I love fall
I love them all.
You know, some standard crap an eight-year-old might write.
But another kid in my class waxed poetic about geese using evocative imagery. It ended with a line I still remember today:
Fly away beautiful geese
Fly to the golden palace
I couldn’t help but wonder: how is this kid so much deeper than me, so much more creative? What talent and intelligence did he have that I didn't? Talent that allowed him to come up with these epic visuals of geese flying to a palace during an autumn sunset. My poem felt so pedestrian, it seemed like I could never be as imaginative as he was.
That feeling stuck with me for years, until one day I happened to see a takeout menu for a Chinese restaurant called Golden Palace. I realized that kid probably just saw a menu on his table and put that phrase — which is, frankly, nonsensical in some ways — into his poem. My eight-year-old brain interpreted it as a deep, creative thought rather than wondering why geese would want to fly to a golden palace for any particular reason.
When you're being creative, you may use your own seemingly ordinary methods. Your “Chinese takeout menu strategies,” if you will. They might not seem special to you in the moment, but for people who aren’t around during your creative process, they seem downright magical.
So instead of giving in to the common urge to minimize your skill and your talent, just let people think that you're magical.
If you’re not sold, consider those most magical of humans: magicians. They do the exact same thing.
They know what they're doing isn't actual magic. They know it's a product of the skills they've worked so hard to develop. But what do they do? They take every chance they get to convince you that they're making real, honest-to-Cthulhu magic.
So when you're sharing your creative work, let people think you're a magician.
Because by definition, you are.
