Apr 18, 20203 min

DARE TO SUCK

Updated: Aug 15, 2023

When it comes to inspiration, everybody struggling in the process of creating his own exclusive piece of art – from George Lucas down to the last junior high school student who has been assigned to a science project – has found himself stuck in a standstill at some point along the way, with anything else than just a crappy version of the idea he had imagined at the beginning.

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people”

– Randy Pausch , The Last Lecture

When it comes to inspiration, everybody struggling in the process of creating
his own exclusive piece of art – from George Lucas down to the last junior high school student who has been assigned to a science project – has found himself stuck in a standstill at some point along the way, with anything else than just
a crappy version of the idea he had imagined at the beginning.

But - quoting Cj MacDonald – you have to remember that creating anything of value in life takes struggle, perseverance and many trials and errors. With all great works, we only see the final, perfect product. But there are always far more many versions that were thrown in the trash.

During a Masterclass lecture, Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code should ring a bell)
had the opportunity to describe his writing process and how he approaches his craft
day-by-day, focusing in on the creative process and the trial and error that gets him to the ending of writing a bestseller novel.

An interesting passage to explain his method includes
a curious exchange of views he had with Steven Tyler
(and again, a second bell should ring under heading

Aerosmith): “Strangely, I learned a lot about creativity

from someone who is very different than I am. A man
named Steven Tyler, who happens to be the lead singer
of Aerosmith. I had the experience of sitting next to him
and talking about the creative process. And he told me
that Aerosmith has this ritual of once a week having a
band meeting called Dare to Suck. Dare to suck, I
thought, what could this possibly be? And Tyler said:
‘Each one of us brings an idea that we think is probably
terrible, and that we are embarrassed that we even have
the idea. But we present it. And nine times out of ten, the
idea is actually terrible. But one time out of ten you
get Dude Looks Like a Lady or Love in an Elevator.’ And I
thought to myself, ‘That is an amazing way to approach
the creative process. It is fearless”.

“Strangely, I learned a lot about creativity from someone who is very different than I am. A man named Steven Tyler, who happens to be the lead singer of Aerosmith."

-Dan Brown

When you are in a creative dead-end, you feel like it’s time to quit. It seems the only natural and easy way out.
Like everybody else that has gone before: they hit the same wall and they chose to quit and turn back. But this means that beyond that wall there’s very little competition; when the air is thin you know that the mountain top lies just out of sight.

Written by

Fabio Amati

Photos by

Sourced from the Web