Sep 7, 2014 / Inspiration

“Make glorious, amazing mistakes.”

Words of creative wisdom, courtesy of Neil Gaiman.

The leap of togetherness by Prem Sahani <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">(CC BY-SA 2.0)</a>

In Neil Gaiman’s now famous 2012 commencement speech at the University of the Arts, he offers some excellent advice to free us from perfectionism, imploring us to simply create — to make art — no matter what. What’s wonderful about this advice is that it applies to any creative endeavour, regardless of whether your art form is writing, drawing, painting, sculpting, or découpage:

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.

So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

There’s plenty of inspiration in Neil’s speech — check it out in its entirety.

Source: Brain Pickings

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  2. I loved this blog; I think a lot of college students, or teenagers in general could take a lot from his speech. Making mistakes is the only way that we will ever grow as people. Once we’ve made a mistake, we will know in the future, “ok this doesn’t work, but how about this…” and it opens us to many more opportunities and chances to do things we’d never do. Everyone makes mistakes, and it does not mean that they’re delinquents. It just means they’ve experimented with something and it did not come out the way they thought it would. No one is perfect, but the imperfections cause for creative and extraordinary outcomes.

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