Jump into the stream of what is already going on.

principle — attributed to Wynton Marsalis

A student at Juilliard told Marsalis what he liked about jazz: when you came into it, you had the feeling it was already going on. The framing reframes how someone joins a collaborative tradition. The newcomer is not asked to be the whole stream. The newcomer is asked to swim in it. The tradition does not require you to invent your contribution from scratch; it requires you to find your fit inside something that predates you and will outlast you. The same is true of any long-running creative practice, any movement, any institution. The work is to join, not to begin.

For new entrants to established creative fields, organizations, and movements. The principle is a useful corrective for newcomers who feel pressure to make their mark before they understand the tradition.

humility, tradition, joining, co-creation