For the longest time I had this fear of looking at a pristine piece of paper and being afraid to put anything on it, because my ideas might not be worth the eff

For the longest time I had this fear of looking at a pristine piece of paper and being afraid to put anything on it, because my ideas might not be worth the effort and materials it took to make the paper. I had collected stacks of beautiful clean notebooks as a child from friends and family who got promotional business materials, so I'd have plenty of paper to write on, once I get wiser (culture of scarcity in Eastern Europe didn't help matters). The biggest allure of dabbling with computers at 8 and learning to program was because you can play and undo things with no material impact. Today I pick my mediums of ideation carefully - scrappy paper notebooks, whiteboard or iPad and only pencils for creative work, but no fancy notebooks or permanent pens. Whether its time or medium the fears are the same - we just need to give ourselves permission to be kids again and go play.