“I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”
- Thomas Edison
Use of the imagination stimulates
travel into a wilderness of mind and movement where connections and cross-overs
exist. Mistakes happen as one careens in search of mysteries.
Often a stumble on the path leads to
a butterfly hidden in a tree's root system. Foraging into the density of
undergrowth uncovers beetles and ladybugs.
Dragonflies chased with a camera
might defeat a photographer. When a song sparrow's call excites, its wings move
faster than the shutter on a cell phone.
Missed photographs do not discourage.
Determination energizes the stalking mind and eye.
A step forward. A head's turn. A sit
and wait. All lead to success.
Forged with determination and
patience, a photographer occasionally turns away in despair. Then
captures an osprey as it arrives with dinner and takes time to munch.
A true believer in failure as
motivation, Thomas Edison welcomed mistakes and challenged rules. As a
result he probed the unknown and experimented with the unseen. He recast the
idea of failure as a learning opportunity. Edison claimed, “Many of life’s
failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when
they gave up.”
With a diary that had over 5 million
pages, Edison felt writing ideas expanded his creativity. This helped him
discover an awareness of patterns in thinking and actions. He claimed he
liked, "to find out what the world needs. Then I go ahead and try to
invent it.”
Edison bragged, “I
make more mistakes than anyone else I know, and
sooner or later, I patent most of them.”
If writers and photographers risk
with mistakes, challenge rules and move beyond them, they can make discoveries
about themselves and their art. What a way to applaud the fearless persistence,
positivity and perspective that Thomas Edison maintained.
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