“Control is just an illusion … albeit a useful one.”

– Me, mangling a much better quote by Einstein

I’ve come across the idea that naming something scary makes it seem less scary. Intuitively this makes sense. I mean, it’s easier to tackle a problem if you know what it is. These days you can probably even google the solution.

As “creative” people the challenge is more fundamental after all, the essence of creativity is trying something new and different – it’s voyaging into the unknown. Creative folks live with fear as their constant companion. (Liz Gilbert writes about this in Big Magic much more eloquently and in greater detail than I’ll go into here.)

I’m creating my #fearbucketproject as a small experiment in acknowledging, naming and releasing my fears. My hope is by sharing the things that scare me it’ll shine a light on the monsters under my bed, help other folks, and force me to practice honesty and vulnerability. I’m also looking forward to looking back (that’s a weird thing to write) on these fears. I suspect what scares me now, won’t scare me in a year, and what scares me in a year, I haven’t even thought of yet.