A type A overachiever fell in love with this phrase, “perpetually in the middle of the beginning.” I don’t remember where I read it, but I love it.
What if we perceived every stage of our lives as perpetually in the middle of the beginning instead of a cut and dry, beginning, middle and end?
Everything will come to its eventual conclusion, be it a project, a painting, an adventure, business, or even marriage. But before it comes to an end, the beginning of something else is already starting to take root, even if you can’t see it. We are never left without the budding idea of what is next, or what could be next. One event flows into another, overlapping and interlacing itself, without you even noticing it.
This concept is hard for us Type A personalities, especially when we like measureable results. What if the result is not based on the performance of the previous project but on the quality of the next project it opens us up to? What if it is about how much bigger we can dream next? What if we see life as one continuous perpetual adventure of which we are always in the middle of the beginning? One adventure rolls into the next on an endless continuum.
A year ago today, fueled by a lifelong diet of Rock and Roll and 70’s Feminism, Kesha Bruce and I launched an unconventional art gallery, Baang and Burne Contemporary.
A week from today, we will open 6×6, an EPIC art festival we’ve been planning for the last 9 months. The first show is Flesh +Bone, featuring new photography, by me, and bronze sculptures, by Ed Smith.
We are at the end of nearly a year of preparation and are in the middle of the beginning of actual shows and events. Before we are done with 6×6, we will know what we want to do for the next 9 months, we are at an endless continuum of beginnings.
Join us at the opening reception for Flesh + Bone, kick off this EPIC 6×6, and celebrate the beginning of the next adventure with us.
A sincere and heartfelt congratulations on your opening next week. I checked out Flesh + Bone on your site and it’s fantastic.
This post really resonated with me. As a Type A overachiever, which I lovingly and sarcastically refer to as the productive badass side of my split personality, I battle with seeing life as a series of constant beginnings rather than a series of finite starts, dos, and ends. I never have been able to capture these thoughts quite like you have.
Enjoyed my visit here immensely. Good luck on 6×6!
“The productive badass side of my split personality” LOL. That is a GREAT phrase. I love it! I just might borrow it from you! 🙂
Thanks so much for the read. Check back in here and there and see what kind of trouble the overachiever gets me into next!
I came to terms with both aspects of myself a few months back and jotted it down in a post called the Procrasti-hater – http://lifeonespoonfulatatime.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/the-procrasti-hater/.
Borrow away, love!
“how will you go the long long journey if you’re always about to begin…?& how will you know you’re home, if you keep falling in love with the wind…?” This is a lyric from Christine Kane’s song called Falling in Love with the Wind…Here’s a link http://new.music.yahoo.com/christine-kane/tracks/falling-in-love-with-the-wind–8769259 She’s great & the sentiment rang true to me as well…
Thanks so much for sharing. Her lyrics are lovely!