Make A Mark

You do not have to know what it will become. 

Find a piece of paper.

Any paper will do.

Take a pencil, a pen, a crayon, a paintbrush—whatever happens to be nearby.

And make one mark.

Not a picture.

Not something beautiful.

Not something you need to understand.

Just a mark.

A line.

A circle.

A wandering little squiggle.

Then make another.

Let the second one answer the first.

Perhaps they cross.

Perhaps they travel in completely different directions.

Perhaps one becomes a shape you recognize.

Perhaps none of them become anything at all.

Keep going for a little while without asking yourself whether you are doing it correctly.

There is no correctly.

That may be the whole point.

Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that creating was supposed to produce something.

Something good.

Something useful.

Something worth showing someone else.

But once, long before any of that, you simply made marks because you could.

And perhaps that part of you is still there.

Waiting for a piece of paper.

Waiting for five quiet minutes.

Waiting for someone to say—

Go ahead.

You are allowed to make something simply because it feels good to make it.

Begin with one mark.