Baking Pies
Same recipe, different ingredients
i am not
here to
compete
i am here
to grow
and be free
- yung pueblo, inward
My aunt is a fabulous baker. Cookies, cakes, sweet breads, squares. They are all so delicious, but my absolute favourite are her gingerbread cookies. They are unlike hard, cakey store bought gingerbread because they are thin and soft and melt in your mouth with a perfect amount of royal icing on top. I have to admit that when my aunt’s baking comes out at family gatherings, I reach for those gingerbread cookies like my life depends on it. (“Grownups first! Sorry kids!”) After all, there’s only so many to go around.
A ‘scarcity mentality’ is a belief that there are a finite number of resources or roles or creative outputs in the world and once they’re used up, there’s no space for any more.
Scarcity mentality can become an excuse that has us second guessing our creative confidence: “There’s already someone out there who’s doing what I want to do; they got there first so there’s no room for me.”
It’s as though you missed the opportunity to find your slice of the pie.
That pie definitely looks complete.
What’s an aspiring creative (landscape artist, writer, designer…) to do?
Why not bake another pie?!
Goodness knows that there’s lots of gingerbread cookies in the world, but that doesn’t stop Auntie Jane from making more all the time. There are likely hundreds or even thousands of variations of the classic gingerbread cookie recipe, each delicious and valid and sensory celebration in its own right.
The fact that others are already doing what you want to do is not a good enough reason not to do it.
Do it for the joy in the journey.
Do it for the creative expression and expansion it brings.
Do it because it feels good to do it.
Do it because you can’t not do it.
If you want to be a landscape artist who designs French gardens, just do it. If you want to be a writer and craft an adventure novel about eating your way across the country, just do it. If you want to design a beautiful typeface in a sea of beautiful typefaces, JUST DO IT (as my Granny used to say, long before Nike commandeered it as their own).
Let’s give ourselves and others permission to create in meaningful ways despite the fact that others are doing the same thing.
By doing work that feels authentic to each of us, there will always be room for everyone to pursue their calling. There’s room for everyone and their pies and their gingerbread cookies, and their paintings, and their dances, and their writing, and their music, and their art.
In the words of the beautiful Alok Vaid-Menon, “Authenticity is not a destination, it’s an orientation and what matters more is that you’re showing up, not where you’re going.”
The creative outputs your bring forth will never be exactly the same as the creative outputs of another because although creating from the same recipe, you’re using different ingredients.
Keep showing up. Keep baking pies.
