13. Let it happen
When a top sports star goes into action – Venus Williams on the tennis court, Cathy Freeman on the running track – you will often here their coaches say:
'Let it happen.'
The training, the gym work, the technical guidance
from the trainer have been internalised; all that is left is for the
athlete to allow talent to express itself.
I was re-reading Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy the other day – a Labyrinth visitor suggested we put it in the Labyrinth library – and I came across:
'… when a man sits down to write a history … he knows
no more than his heels … what a dance he may be led …
accounts to reconcile; anecdotes to pick up; inscriptions
to make out; stories to weave in; traditions to
sift; personages to call upon …'
Gosh, it's hard work!
But it is true: all these things and more must be allowed to happen – must be let into the work and given room to breathe.
