‘Lede (or get outta the way)’

Oh, god, it's the getting started that's the most difficult, every damn time. The image is there, the feeling of where it all has to go. And don't get me wrong: I love the journey and all that; it's not like I'm some prescriptive autocrat, forcing round pegs into square holes, boring tracts of narrative and lines of logic where no holes exist whatsoever. Not generally, anyway. But before any journey can begin you need to put your clothes on and get one foot moving in front of the other, right? So many times I just end up standing there, the winds whistling through my ears, naked.

It's a pity, really – not for me, necessarily, but just for that big corpus of collective consciousness out there. I mean, I've got some really great ideas, man! Sometimes when things are going well, my brain fairly fizzes and snaps; and other times, when things aren't, that's when the really good ideas start flowing. But if you can't get started, what's the use? Does that big corpus of collective consciousness include all of those good-but-never-actualised ideas? If so, my whole outlook on humanity might change for the better.

The problem isn't laziness or anxiety or whatever else people complain about, but rather one of too much freedom. A hungry gull sitting on a stump wants to fly down the beach and so she jumps, starts to fall and is forced to flap her wings. Without that initial nudge – an endless number of potential directions! – would she just sit there, endlessly, dithering and withering away?

~ This is part of a series of Himal's commentary on artwork by Ahmed Suveyb, a self-taught artist based in Male. Mixed medium on canvas, 30×38 in.