One of the things I found myself hollering at my daughters over the years was
“Show your work!”
“Show your work!”
and
“Show your work.”
Okay, so it wasn’t hollering as much as it was relentlessly intense reminders to, yes,
“Show. Your. Work.”
I’ve gotta say, it’s super disconcerting to find yourself ripping a page out of your Algebra teacher’s playbook. To find yourself repeating the very things you swore you’d never repeat at any point in your life. Because it was such a ridiculous request, you see. Hardly worth the time and effort it took to breathe life into that phrase. Hardly warranting such relentless bugging. Definitely not the hill on which to die in a classroom.
And I don’t know., Either the teachers didn’t explain it right or I was once again just not listening.
But.
I don’t remember any kind of explanation as to why “Show your work” was such a big friggen deal.
Of course of course of course we all know the reason is because it’s the only way to spot logical errors in your own work. You have to see it for yourself on the page. Because only there are our own errors obvious. Because in our heads?
Yeah. Everything makes sense.
Everything is logical in there.
Everything’s all good. All the time.
It’s a master illusion we successfully pull on ourselves every day. And it works perfectly every day.
When we allow it.
So.
Showing my work’s a thing. As a Creative, I’ve gotta show myself the work. Somehow on paper, if that’s possible. Definitely visually.
I’ve used online apps, for example, to work on blocking a walk ‘n talk I was to shoot.
And yeah. That kind of thing does play differently in my head than it does out in the open where me, God, and everyone and their grandmother can see it.
It’s a rule, if you will. That we should submit our ideas, all of them, to the bright light of day. Lest we fool ourselves into thinking our creative ideas are somehow unassailable. Right there in our imaginations from which they spring.
Where everything, unfortunately, makes sense.
