Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Flawed

A friend recently told me that when you make your humiliation part of your creative process, you liberate yourself to, well, create. Hence, here goes my second blog post in all of 2009! Go me.

I've always had a difficult time with "putting myself out there." My wise teeny son likes to accuse me of perfectionism, but that's too simplistic. For decades I felt like I couldn't do anything artistically because (1) I was always surrounded by artistic people, (2) I felt the need to be completely original, and (3) I didn't want judgment, mostly from my own self. All this despite feeling like I was a creative type innately and that when I choose to lose myself in a project, be it drawing or writing, I was pretty damn good, at times even great.

Anyway, I'm now building myself a tenuous bridge and gingerly getting over it. Because you know what, being afraid of not being great is just no fucking way to live. I am simply too tired of it. I am simply too old for it. I don't have the same energy I once had to stifle whatever it is that bubbles out.

So from this point forward, I will use this blog to write and write and write. Most of it will be dribbly shitstain (like that's any different from what's come before), but I will do my damnest to resist the Delete button. And allow maybe only a handful of Edit. The self-censor mode is a bitter pill. It's a cliche to say that you're your worst enemy, but that doesn't make it any less true. The thing is, when you're pretty good at a lot of different things, finding the one true outlet to focus on can be a bit like [insert metaphor].

So there you have it. I've given myself permission to suck so that I can begin the process of sucking less.

I am now hitting the Publish Post button.