This is universally applicable. And there is no way around this first rule if you ever want to be good at anything.
Let’s consider this a follow up to my previous blog. I’d like to share my experience without charging you for it, even though the internet tells me I am a brand that needs to be marketed properly so I can make money off of you.
Too bad I was born into a socialist country (albeit one that failed thoroughly, but some socialist ideals aren’t all bad).
Take your job. Whatever it is you call your occupation that pays your bills and the roof over your head. You had to learn how to do it. Perhaps it took a long time. Perhaps it didn’t.
If you learned the rules of your profession well, you are probably quite good at it. You know what you are doing and people trust you to do it well.
Great.
Now is the time to do it better. Break the rules, bend them, twist them, tweak them. Make them better or discard them. If you know what you are doing, you can find a way to do it better.
Nothing is set in stone. Perfection is never achieved. There is always a better way of doing something. Or a different way that ends up making things more interesting.
I am being deliberately vague here, because you can apply all of the above to arts, crafts, the next best office job, blue and white collar jobs or the way you sweep the floor.
You do need an ounce of creativity, though, a pinch of imagination and daring, and a spoonful of open-mindedness.
Take this article for instance:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-one
Every writer has different rules. Sometimes they are similar or even the same. But often they are downright contradictory.
It’s good to know all the rules. Every single one of them. Learn them. Work with them. Then go and break them.
Obviously I’m narrowing this down to writing, because that’s what I do. But I learned about this concept when I learned about photography. I was told that I was breaking the rules before I even knew them. So I learned the rules to find out what they were.
It helped.
I still wouldn’t call myself a photographer and have much to learn still, but I know enough that I also know how to break rules, which ones should be bent and broken and which ones are best kept.
You see, not everything you learn about your profession needs to be improved upon. But if you find that some things can be changed for the better, by all means go ahead and figure it out.
And good luck!
2clouds 