How to Flip Your Way Out of Failure
The cure for creative doubt and moving forward - it's in your hands.
Don’t like reading? Allow me to read it to you 👈
A bird in the hand.
Two things.
Flip.
One, there is no bush, and two, worth is of no worth. Not anymore. Not in this world of wonky people-last economies and strange fascinations and idioms no one knows.
A bird is…
Flip.
Destroyer of Dumb.
Flip.
Defender of Dreams.
Flip.
Dexterous Digital Doubt Detonator.
A bird is in your hand. Hand plumage has power.
Pass it on.
Flip.
“Example?” you say. “Show me the power.”
You asked for it.
Proof?
Look at you. Stuck in your art. Blocked on the freeway to completion. You complain of long delays and speed limits and people not indicating or letting you in and burning tires in the laneway of your inspiration and litter and bottles and cans and discarded shoes and nails and wire in the shoulder. Debris smashing on both sides of your creative car and there you are, slowly draining fuel and energy and inching toward the breakdown lane. Just in case.
This journey of yours—it is almost at a standstill and it is driving you insane. A violent halt of your momentum. You can’t miss an exit that never gets closer. Onramps and off-ramps and overpasses beckoning. Roiling, belching smoke and smog and self-driven yahoos in fast lanes blocked off to you. All around are windows down and shaking fists and swearing symphonies of garbled anger and people blocking your way and driving too slow and brake checking your every move.
Here. This bird’s for you.
Make a fist. Now, with swift flip of wing and feather and beak and talon and raptor-ous precision, release the hawk.
The bird in your hand.
Rare bird, scare bird, screech bird, away!
Watch as it circles the blockage on the highway of your endeavor. With knuckle and nail and claw of fire, the hawk bird of prey swoops down upon those who stand in your way, screeching and caaaring as it wheels above and around the blockade below. The thick armor of its poise is impervious to the fender-bending bluster of one-way signs and road works and stop-and-go dead ends. Dive bombing and squawking and killing the kill of the kill switch engine, hawking on hawk juice, it screams in to pluck the eyeballs of jam from the roadway of flow.
Slowly but confidently tearing out entrails of bad GPS signals, while eviscerating self-doubt cars at the tollgate. Trucks honk, with brake lights disengaging, as the hawk seeks roost in the brain space of yes, a trembling mouse of doubt held softly in its beak as it eyes the freeway. The freeway, now truly free.
Hawk—power in its plumage—reaches out as a proud one finger salute to the snarl.
Proof?
Unbidden, unwanted, undone, the critics come. They come for you. Some are known to you, some strangers whom you’ve never seen nor sought. They play dumb and smart and stick their sticky fingers in the joy of your work to tear and smudge and stain your smile. Tearing strips from the deck of your mighty ship, they expose the tender framework of your art. Your fragile bones, delicate flesh, and sensitive skin.
You, vulnerable and exposed. They seek not to understand, only to ridicule and big ups themselves for their witticisms and criticisms. They broadcast harsh comment having never—nor will they ever—dared to strip naked in front of strangers, yet find it within their critics’ code to steal your clothes as you stand there. A cold wind, a skin made raw. Never knowing, just throwing stones of glee.
Like low flying helicopters of hate, they buzz in blow up your life, and fly off never having learned how to spell your name. They lurk at the edge of talent, mill about on the periphery of your dream, and stomp all over the clean floor of your purpose. Swagger, prance, pepper, and pose. Behind their eyes—their flat, dull, and lifeless eyes—nothing but the liquid inks of bully.
The critic mumbles at their own backdoor. The stench is overwhelming. An opinion never asked for yet given freely, like a sneaky fart in need of an open window.
Quick. Here’s a bird.
Make a fist. Left or right hand. Think Pacific, think Indian, think Atlantic. Pick an ocean. Think salt and brine and whale song off the coast. Now flip and release a bitchin’ gull—thief of ego chips, annoyer of worlds.
Bird vs. turd. A single digit with a multiplex of meaning that squawks and grunts and cries, cooing and calling and protesting above the big-headed, low-browed critics. Irritating bird, relentless bird, paparazzi bird. Pecking and preening, the seagull rips and nips and circles in now, too close to the face of those who hath offended thee.
Flip. Flip. Flip!
Pulling hair and dashing in with fly-like annoyance, the gull glides toward the exposed ego of a sad career critic to dump a review of its own, directly on the bonnet of your sworn forever enemy. Flip. Seagull struts and circles and never gives up. Seagull is a relentless defender of the realm. Seagull steals back your confidence chips, one by salty one.
Seagull—power in its plumage—flips off the feedback phoneys.
Not your bird?
Okay. Look at you. Inert. Alone. Asleep. Lost in the stillness, the inaction, the deadness of your soul, you are trapped in a world of your own making. A malaise of laziness that came from nowhere as a sickness of spirit you could not control. A surface of stillness that defies your imagination. Floating on a gentle stream, still and glassy, you are cork, you are stick, you are bloated cadaver of dispirited demotivation. You have been blown off course by ragged winds and dragged by strong currents of duty and stress.
At every turn, you float and bob and allow yourself to get lost in the flood of worry and internal conflict that contributes nothing to the work, to the art, to the mission. Your ideas are dead in the water—the water that is slowly taking you out to sea.
This is not your water. These are not your currents. Looking to the reeds, to the shore, to the anchor points, people wave from the muddy banks, shouting back what you whisper quietly to yourself as water slowly floods your ears:
“Just go with the flow. You never had it in you, anyway.”
Make a fist. Release the bird. The mighty mallard. The don’t give a duck.
Duck knows all. Duck puffs out its chest and looks demurely down its bill and with a flip of its shiny feathered head, says with a laugh:
“I don’t duck around. Look at my ducking face. You have no idea how deep I go. Quack!”
Rigid as a headmaster, still upon the surface, down below its legs churn the water to a frenzy of go. With agitated flips and flaps and webbed intensity, the rudder is activated and the turn of intention flips. With a quack and duck dive below this bird sifts rich nutrients from dead motivations, navigating your heart and soul and brain and life force directly toward the shore.
Flip.
Duck you, sadness.
Flip.
Duck you, judgement from shore dwellers who are too afraid to enter the water at all.
Flip.
Duck you, floods and whirlpools and eddies and waves.
What lies beneath?
Duck—power in its plumage—fends off the water most foul.
The proof is in the power.
You hold within your hand a bird for every possible creative dream killer. Every little traffic jam, critical deterrent, ego blow, and motivation murderer—there is a bird for everything.
Rare birds. Common birds. Postage stamp birds. National birds. Coat of arms birds (number per coat varies.)
Birds of prey. Song birds. Seabirds. Water birds. Waders that enter from on high with their backward knees and towering rage, stepping through the swampiness of life to flip wildly at your foes. You must learn what each bird is best at. You must learn to flip them all. You must flip with all seriousness. With vigor. With honest intensity and pride.
Load up your arms.
Release the birds from the birdhouse of your hands. Let your birds fly free, to spread their wings and soar wildly, twittering and chattering around the evil heads that yearn to halt all progress on your expressions of self. Of your work. Of your art. Of you.
Power is in the plumage. The plumage lives at the center of each fist.
Go behind the scenes and see inspirations for this post👇
This week’s amends…
“The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.”― James Baldwin
On Rotation: “Always Trying to Work it Out” by Low
One of my favorite Low songs.
I had this one lined up for Valentine’s Day then completely missed the date. Whoops.
Here’s about 50,000 crushed candy hearts mixing with the Tibetan art of mandala sand painting, just for funsies.
This guy. Makes me laugh every time.
