Seth Godin recently made a post about recklessness which intersected somewhat with the concept of giving permission for failure, something that is a key element to the creative process.
In fact, that is the essence of the first example he gives after evoking a homophonic word play with wrecklessness
Worth noting that there’s no ‘w’ in reckless. We imagine there might be, since a wreck is entirely possible.
There’s the recklessness of creative generosity. This happens when we show up with our best work, regardless of how it might feel if it doesn’t land with the desired audience.
He makes similar statements about recklessness of connection, love, joy, solitude, radical honesty, and financial abandon.
I confess to not being entirely enamored of the idea of financial abandon. I am not sure if he is casting in a positive light or not.
He also raises the example of recklessness of unlearning which has been a recurring topic in the arts and culture world for most of my life. There has been conversation about not becoming dependent on existing audiences, donors, marketing methods, audience relations, and programming in the face of ever changing socio-economic conditions and expectations.
The recklessness of unlearning. When we deliberately dismantle our carefully constructed expertise and certainties to make space for new ways of seeing and being.
I will say there are a lot of people in the arts and culture learning, adapting, and executing new and interesting ideas and approaches. I am often delighted when I come across these promising practices. But it also seems like this stuff isn’t happening as broadly as it probably needs to which I attribute to lack of time and resources.
