In section 38 (“Hoarding is Toxic”) of his book The Practice, Seth Godin writes:
“Hoarding your voice is based on the false assumption that you need to conserve your insight and generosity or else you’ll run out of these qualities.”
Scarcity mindset at its finest. I recognise it in myself almost every time I post here. “Could I save this for a book instead?” “What if someone steals this?” Well, as Austin Kleon teaches us, theft goes on all the time in art and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. But at the heart of these worries is the fear that if I give away these ideas nothing else will replace them. The well won’t fill back up again. And yet that’s never been the case. Sure, sometimes it’s not as full as I would like, but the well always fills back up. How can it not? I’m alive aren’t I?
Seth again:
“Abundance multiplies. Scarcity subtracts. A vibrant culture creates more than it takes.”
Amen to that.
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[…] because it came out so clumsy and a familiar voice said “this is it, you’ve lost it.” But, like I wrote elsewhere, life goes on and there is repair. Because I have a regular writing practice that includes this […]