I knew I wanted to start a blog again after years of not having one. And I knew how to set one up. And, mostly, it all seemed pretty straightforward. But then, the thought of the first post caused me to postpone and delay…

What should the first post be? Surely, it has to be special because it’s the first. Inevitably, delay.

Eventually I got thinking, why does the first post have to be so good? Why the tendency to feel that the first time has to be so special? The first album, the debut novel, the first kiss, the first business idea, a new art collective, the directorial debut, this first blog post. Maybe it’s me, but there seems to be a tendency to keep holding things like this back just a tad longer.

It could just be plain old fear but, honestly, I’m not that scared – I’ve released enough in the past that could fairly be described as average, irrelevant or outright shite. I’ve been told something I cared about doesn’t work or that it’s not as good as I initially thought. It didn’t ruin me. So, I figure the penchant for delay is more likely related to a desire to maintain some illusion of control.

After all, as long as you haven’t taken direct action by launching your new idea into the world yet, it’s pretty easy to feel like you still have control over the outcome. The canvas is unspoiled. But as soon as you release it – that sacrosanct idea with so much ‘promise’ – it’s out of your hands and full control over it largely evaporates. And maybe it won’t be received with any enthusiasm.

Moreover, while we wait – scheming that little bit longer – it’s easy to feel pretty good about ourselves, projecting imagined ideas and outcomes gloriously into the future. Look what I plan to do and imagine how good it could be. Instant classic… Overnight success… Stroke of genius… All remain possible responses to an idea as long as it hasn’t been committed to the public arena yet. That’s the seduction of never getting it out into the world.

The vague space created by delay becomes a comfortable place to hide and indulge in hope – until you realise months have gone by and there’s not much to show for them.

Instead, there’s a chance to gain dynamic control from taking action and, most likely, making some mistakes. That way (unless we’re so deluded that we never see failures and mistakes for what they are), when we head into the next challenge or broach the next idea, we’re armed with additional knowledge of what did and what didn’t work last time around. That in and of itself seems banally obvious, yet there’s resistance to employing the approach with consistency.

Perhaps the way to approach this problem of getting things out there then should be more like the approach most take to driving for the first time.

After all, most who’ve learned to drive don’t get the perfect first car – we accept that because we can’t afford the ones that appear perfect. But a lot of the time, even though there’s a good chance our first car will be cheap and flawed – a red 2001 plate Citroën Saxo previously driven by a geriatric, for example – it ends up being special in many respects. After all, it was in that car that you really learned and truly took control of something. So, that debut novel or album, or new bit of art that you want to share, let it be another vessel to imperfectly explore the world in.

That’s how to gain control – from navigating imperfections. And you can only navigate imperfections by setting out into the uncertainty of the real world. As opposed to hoarding things in the confines of your imagination.

But when it comes to art and ideas, for some reason there’s a fear that if we start and don’t get it right straight away, we’ll have lost control and risk a crash. And what’s worse than losing control over something that could have been perfect?

Well, being creatively static, probably.

So, not the perfect first blog post, but it’s better to hit the road than sit in a driveway.