The fear of a blank page or canvass

One of the biggest fears artists have is that of a blank page or canvass. After all they face infinite options and possibilities, there’s a wealth of information within their heads, bulging, pushing against their temples trying to get out, making their hands twitch, their eyes pop, and still sometimes they’re at a loss where to start.

This is a clear example of an existential crisis. This is the fear of mankind to make choices; the wider the range of possibilities, the more difficult it is to make up your mind, which is a law of economics, although I admit I don’t know exactly who stated it first. Whenever you go into a super market to buy toothpaste, it’s a real mess, with so many options to chose from that people will usually stick to the brand their parents used, or the one the neighbor suggested, just to spare themselves the need of consciously making a choice.

No picture that you have an infinite amount of possibilities, that the entire realm of human imagination is at your disposal, and then you can start to picture just how difficult it is to start writing, or painting, or sculpting, or composing, or creating in any way, even if it’s a dull monthly activities report for your boss. Albeit this last case at least has a much smaller realm of possibilities.

Now this brings me to a new and more challenging problem: how to fight the blank page syndrome? There are no magic brain chemistry pills to do it for you, and a shrink is too expensive, so if anyone has any suggestions I’d really appreciate them, although given the fact that I seem to be the only person reading this Blog, then I’ll just have to keep on looking for the answer myself.