The Classic Vanilla Cake

“Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they’re deciding, make even more art.”
– Andy Warhol

We hesitate to write because we hesitate being not right.

You see how hard I tried there to make something “wise” out of wordplay.

We care so much about how we’re perceived that we’ve forgotten what it means to create something because it needs to be created and not because we need to be seen as “the wise one.”

When we put something out for public consumption, we aren’t doing it just for ourselves. We have journals for that. If our writing doesn’t take readers from point A to point B, but only exists to shift their perception of us from A to B, then what’s in it for them?

(And on a side note, their perception of us won’t change unless what we’ve created changes them first. So, it’s a lost cause.)

Writing feels too hard when we’re trying too hard. Otherwise, it’s just hard.

Sometimes all we need to do is find a different way of saying things people already know, because what they already know isn’t helping them change. They want the same ingredients with a twist.

A cake’s ingredients are essentially the same, but the essence keeps changing. Chocolate might be universally loved, but that doesn’t mean everyone enjoys it. People look for flavours that match their taste.

We are all much like essences. Some butterscotch, a few coffee, others strawberry, and one too many vanilla. Even though in the end each essence mixes with similar ingredients, its presence still creates something entirely different without trying too hard, in fact in just a drop.

That’s how essence works.

Yet most of us are scrambling to be flour, sugar, or butter: mere ingredients in life’s pantry, when we could be the vanilla that makes the whole damn cake worth eating.