Zenstrol, the coffee of the 22nd century. Never mind that it literally released 'the inner demons'. In all things Zen, it was the journey that mattered.

It's not so much the obscurity as it is the crapiness that is discouraging.

Nevertheless, your advice is simple yet difficult, and remarkably profound. I'm still realizing how that principle applies so broadly and the ways in which I have failed by thinking and planning when I should have been acting and refining.

It's the evolution of creation. It's how we learn; how we grow.

Right, as someone once said:

'You've gotta get a thousand bad drawings out of you before you start doing good ones.'

HEY JOHN

Excellent advice.

HEY KEVIN

2nd sentence, 2nd paragraph. Good extrapolation; there's a really good quotation just jumping to get out of that thought. I would add "don't sacrifice either for the other."

HEY YOUNGSTERS

Listen to the man!!! Pay attention to those who've been through it & learn from their experience (as well as their mistakes--it is far more efficient to learn from somebody else's mistakes than to learn from your own).

You'll find that the more you do, the more you learn--& the easier it will be to take what you envision & make it real.

Think of the composition of a painting as performing a piece of music. Great musicians don't just sit around listening, reading, thinking--then one day just sit down at a piano (or pick up a guitar) & rip.

There is a harmony between the mental & the physical; the skills you develop by exercising both are psycho-motor skills, & you develop them through a perpetual cycle of thought, action, & reflection.

HEY TERWILIGER

Being a "born genious" doesn't hurt.

HEY JOHN

No argument on that point.

I realize that you write that in a slightly self-aggrandizing/humorous way...

BUT...it has been my experience that the people who are considered "tops" in their fields--the successful--are rarely the smartest or the most talented.

“Nothing in this world can take the place of perseverance. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of education derelicts. Perseverance and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” – Calvin Coolidge

“Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration!” - Thomas Edison

There is no one who is more boorish than a genius who is aware that he is a genius, is impressed by that fact, & deludes himself into thinking that he knows far more than he actually does.

HEY T

"genious" was the give-away, don't ya think?

I was toetully oblivius.