The Saturday Morning Post: Screw up to learn to be creative

I had a flashback recently to an art class I took 35 years ago at Rollins College. It was a silver casting and construction class. One of the projects was to construct a hollow silver cylinder box. You start with a flat sheet of silver, roll it around a form, cut it size, solder the seam, solder on a top and bottom that are slightly larger than the cylinder, trim those to size, file the endes, and polish the finish on a buffing wheel. I started out with a large round, the larger size was easier to work with, or at least it seemed to be. I was working fast and feeling really good about it, and disaster struck. The piece caught on the buffing wheel, was pulled out of my grip and smashed into the floor. The professor who had been watching from a distance, and shaking his head from time to time, as I worked fast and cut a few corners watched it happen, and stepped into his office, the room could hear him laughing. I had screw up, I was working on too large of a piece, I was working to fast, he knew it, I knew it, the piece was a mess. 

I cleaned up, went home and thought about it, and I started over. I made a smaller piece. I followed the instructions. I put a lot of hours into it. In fact I will say that the most important thing I learned in that class, is to put the hours into do the job right. And many jobs will take much longer than you expect or hope. 

If I hadn't screwed up, I might never have learned that. 

There have been books written about making a mess and breaking things, the real message is to learn from the mess you make or the things you break, learn how to do them better. Learn to create, by screwing things up.