I’ve been thinking a lot about ‘self-authorisation’ recently.
Self-authorisation is giving oneself permission. Permission to write, to draw, to make music, or do anything creative.
It’s been spurred on by this post by Austin Kleon, and his reflection on Verlyn Klinkenborg’s thinking in Several Short Sentences About Writing.
The problem is that as a kid grows up, at some point, they start to say, “I no longer have permission to do X.”
What causes this timidity? What drives the reluctance?
I feel it sometimes when approaching certain topics on this blog; I think: there’s so much I don’t know, and there’s so many others better qualified to speak on the matter.
I love how Klinkenborg gives us the tools to work through this fear:
“But everything you notice is important.
Let me say that a different way:
If you notice something, it’s because it’s important.
But what you notice depends on what you allow yourself to notice,
And that depends on what you feel authorized, permitted to notice
In a world where we’re trained to disregard our perceptions.
Who’s going to give you the authority to feel that what you notice is important?
It will have to be you.
The authority you feel has a great deal to do with how you write, and what you write,
With your ability to pay attention to the shape and meaning of your own thoughts
And the value of your own perceptions.
And so, each day, I try to turn up and notice. And today, with a little more self-authorisation than yesterday.
Join me.