Everything is difficult on the first time, and you can’t start from the second time.
Whatever thing I take up, I am fully aware that I can’t skip the beginner level.
But instead of trying to run through it as fast as possible, I tend to try to get the most out of it, because being a newbie isn’t always a curse. It can be a privilege if you approach it carefully: when you’re limited in terms of what you can do, it pushes you to be imaginative and inventive. It helps you understand what creativity is all about.
Ideas don’t show up just because you tell them to, and that’s why I never make any plans on creative work. Ideas are either there or not, and when they aren’t, suffer in silence and do whatever rituals you think may help summon them.
I call these things rituals because there is no way you can tell which time they will work out and which time they won’t. But the moment you stop conducting them, you can be one hundred percent sure you’ll end up with nothing. That’s, however, is all I need to know. At this stage, I don’t care how this works. I only care about what I get. “Magic is the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with Will,” as Aleister Crowley once wrote. “Change” and “will” are the most important here. Processes are secondary: at this level I don’t know anything about them anyway.
Of course, some basic knowledge is necessary, but what’s no less important is being aware of what you don’t know. Applying what you know to what you don’t have any idea of is not always a smart move. Crowley once described this as similar to “a rustic trying to blow out an electric light.”
