Everything has to start somewhere. Usually it starts with an idea or that strange indescribable thing we call inspiration. Sometimes it seems like you don't have to do anything for that, it just pops up and suddenly you know what you want to do. Whether it's to make a painting, take a photo, write your thesis or build a house. And as hard as it may seem when you're in a creative drought, ideas will always return. That's a matter of patience and is more passive then we may realise.

The hard part is the real start. An idea, how great and awesome it might be, is never a real start. You can't pick up the idea to build a house and then tell everyone "Oh yeah, I'm building a house." There is a big difference between having an idea or the desire to do something and actually doing it. The border between the land of dreams and reality is well guarded and customs are strict. Those who want to bring an idea across must face many trials because for ideas, reality has a harsh climate. An unrealistic idea can be burned to cinders if it's confronted with reality and it may feel like the conceiver of the idea is burned right with it.

For me, this is one of the biggest hindrances for my work and an important reason to spend a lot of time between idea and execution. There are positive points to this, certainly. My ideas tend to stew and grow in my mind, from short vague flashes to complex concepts. The dangers, however, are even greater. The bigger an idea gets, the more it will burn when it's not compatible with reality and the bigger the chance that a certain element of the idea is highly volatile.

Only recently, I have realised how a quick execution of an idea is often a much more rewarding method opposed to letting it stew. My most recent works have mostly been a spur of the moment kind of thing, even though the themes and some techniques were already in my head long before that. In fact, I've come to greatly dislike an idea sitting in my head. Having discovered the burning sensations of large dreams incinerated by reality, I try to prevent failing through executing my idea instead of trying to prevent failing by hiding in the land of dreams.

Because I have discovered that I am a man of ideas. Dreams are in my blood, my genetic code. But those ideas will be worthless if they are not held to the fires of reality. Maybe it will melt them, transform them into something valuable like a plough or a sword. Maybe it will incinerate completely. But the important thing is to try and get the ideas across. Because in the end, the land of dreams is wonderful and immense, but it is also prone to wild, uncontrollable changes. An idea allowed to remain an idea for too long may just become too large and volatile to handle.