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Something Starts Somewhere

Everything begins as a seed, a seed we need to plant somewhere.

The Struggle with the Blank Page

The hardest part is starting. Nothing brings on doubt faster than a blank page. Writers, coders, painters, marketers—it doesn’t matter what the field. Everyone faces silence before the first note is made.

A young designer from San Francisco California told me how paralyzed they felt staring their ambitious idea. They wanted to create the ultimate productivity app. Their notebooks bulged with sketches. Their laptop overflowed with mind maps. But for months, they built nothing. Their idea had grown too big to hold.

One evening, while despairing at their kitchen table, they sketched a single circle: a button. What if the entire app began here, they asked themselves, with one simple function?

Press the button, and it logs your focus session.
No accounts.
No dashboards.
No charts of progress.
Just a button - when you click you're asked a question.

They built it in a weekend. It was crude. It even glitched every few clicks. But it existed. That small seed carried the essence. From there they could grow. That button bloomed into the app now used around the world.

The blank page daunts us because we imagine filling the whole of it all at once. The truth is simpler. Begin with the smallest version - the seed; the essence. It's a trace of what’s to come.

That is enough to break paralysis.

Start with the Seed

Every creation begins as a seed. A tiny fragment, no bigger than a thought scribbled on a napkin or a half‑formed note on your phone. At first, it seems too small to matter. But seeds never look impressive on the surface. Their worth comes when the growing starts.

Think of sparks in dry grass. A single flicker doesn’t give heat or light. But protected, fed, and fanned, it becomes a fire that can warm or illuminate for miles. Your ideas work the same way. They don’t need to arrive as grand visions. They only need to exist. Momentum does the rest.

I once met a woman in the Azores who built a business with no plan, no capital, and barely any materials. She sold her grandmother’s kimchi recipe at a local market. Three jars, a borrowed folding table, one handwritten sign. Hardly a startup empire. Yet that day she learned something vital: her jars sold out within an hour. She went home and made more. What grew first was not her skill, not even her product—it was her willingness to plant the seed.

From Guesswork to Clarity

Ideas in your head are fog. You can see shapes, but nothing is clear. That fog does not lift until someone else looks at your work. Clarity comes only when the seed meets soil. In other words: when you ship.

A few students in Montreal experienced this firsthand. They had built a language‑learning tool for a class project. Their design was ambitious but crowded. Deadlines loomed. So they cut everything to a barebones release—so bare they called it “embarrassing.” It crashed. Half the buttons didn’t lead anywhere.

Still, they sent it out. Something surprising happened. Within a week, messages poured in. Not criticism about the missing features, but requests for stories to practice language with: “Could you add short conversations?” “Could you let us learn by reading?”

That feedback reshaped the app entirely. They threw out clunky features, doubled down on stories, and built something new. Their little, broken seed sprouted differently than they expected, but it grew.

Until you ship, everything is guesswork. After you do, the next steps becomes clear.

Becoming a Maker

Clarity is good. Action is better. And nothing works without one thing: time you protect for making.

I once visited a carpenter in Canada. Their woodshop smelled of cedar and linseed oil so strong it clung to your clothes. He had no employees, only their hands and their tools. Chairs lined the walls, half‑finished. “Morning is sacred,” they told me. “If I check my phone, email, or social media before noon, I lose the whole day. So I don’t.”

Their rule was strict. No distractions and no excuses. The creative hours were sealed and holy. By noon, they often had one chair leg shaped, maybe two. Slow work, but steady. And their pieces sell every spring, fetching higher prices each year.

Discipline carried him further than bursts of energy ever could. He carved out a rhythm as much as they carved the wood.

Writers, coders, and bakers discover the same truth. A poet writes one stanza every morning at dawn. A developer blocks one or two nights a week. A baker experiments with recipes before everyone else wakes. None depends on fits of inspiration. They rely on rhythm. To be a maker is to defend this rhythm. Protect your seed from weeds and storms. Momentum grows best through both the steady sunlight and heavy rains.

Embracing Rough First Versions

Even with discipline, the first versions will wobble. They may even feel pitiful. That is their role.

The Kimchi seller confessed her early batches often spoiled. Labels smeared in the summer heat. She winced with embarrassment handing them across the counter.

The designer’s single‑button app crashed and froze. Yet people still used it.

The carpenter’s first chairs were heavy, clumsy, awkward to sit in. But the strength of the craft was there, hiding inside the rough form.

Perfection never leads anywhere. It follows. Smoothness comes later. But the roughness proves your seed has roots.

Without rough first versions, there is nothing to refine.

Closing: Begin Where You Are

Every seed must be planted before it grows. Every spark must be struck before it ignites. The call is simple: Begin where you are, with what you have.

It might be a jar of kimchi. A lonely button on a screen. A chair leg shaped by hand.

Momentum multiplies once you’ve begun. Momentum is your sunlight, your water, your soil.

Work brings growth.

The first step is the seed.
Momentum is water.
Work is sunlight.

Begin today. And watch what grows.