Showing Up For Work

Earlier this week I read a sobering and somewhat startling anecdote about the great artist Pablo Picasso: while he created one hundred pieces of art which are classified as “masterpieces,” the real genius of his creativity was his work ethic, because over the course of his lifetime, he created over FIFTY THOUSAND separate works of art!

How did he do it?

Simple.

And excruciatingly hard.

He went to the studio.

He picked up his tools.

And he made art.

Some of it was awful.

Some of it was mediocre.

Some of it was passable.

Some of it was good.

Some of it was outstanding.

And…

Only .02% of a lifetime’s worth of work were masterpieces!

But what masterpieces they are!

I’ve been thinking a good deal about the return on investment of this sort of effort which spanned a lifetime of days, one day at a time. Mostly, I’ve been trying not to get depressed about all the wasted days leading until now, and instead focus on the “it’s never too late” adage people want to toss around with such certainty. The fact is, there are some things that have likely passed me by. I simply won’t have time and money to get them done. I’ll have to make peace with unrealized dreams, and drop a few items off of my bucket list.

But…I’m not dead yet, and according to a quick perusal of the internet, the average life expectancy of a 60 year old man in the United States is 83.

So the opportunity for me is to start the daily work of creativity, again.

Now.

There’s no time left to wait.

I may not make a masterpiece.

At this point, I’ll simply settle for good enough.