There Is No Secret Ingredient

This is something I just added to my profile on Ravelry. I thought about it a while and decided I wanted to put it in a blog post as well.

I know this will sound really odd, but lately I am beginning to understand something important about myself, art, and life. As long as I have been working with fiber, I have always felt that if I could just design like this person, or knit like that person, or weave like so-and-so--or spin like my roommate (!)--THEN I would be a “real” fiber artist. But I never felt that anything I did ever really ‘measured up’ to what other people I know (and love dearly) were able to achieve or accomplish -- my work was just a (distant) second-best, if that.

Slowly, I am beginning to understand something different. It sounds ridiculous to get a deep truth from a children’s movie, but there it was, waiting for me.

“There is no secret ingredient… it’s just you.” Yep. That's right. Kung Fu Panda has a surprising amount of wisdom hidden in there (even though some of the humor tends toward crudeness). There is one scene where Po and Shifu are shouting at each other about whether Po has what it takes to really become the kung fu warrior he has always yearned to be. He says, at one point, in complete frustration, "I thought if there was anyone who could make me not-me, it was you." That's what hit me squarely between the eyes -- just like me, Po thought that the secret of achieving what he dreamed of was to become "not-me" -- to become someone else.

But Po is Po. He can't become Tigress, he can't become Crane, he can't become Monkey. He can learn from them, but he can't be them. He can only become what he already is. Po's strengths are his own, and he learns to fight in a way that is uniquely his.

This is not to say that I can’t learn more, develop my skills, grow, and strive for excellence -- but I am learning that I don’t have to become "not-me" to be a fiber artist. For me to be who I am--and for you to be who you are--is enough.

There is no secret ingredient.