A few days ago I was describing to my therapist the persistent fear that I have regarding creative work. There are so many things I dream of doing and yet find myself unable to pursue persistently. The fear manifests in many forms. Most notably in the form of hopeless perfectionism. I feel like the things I work on are never coming close to what I can see in my head. There's a famous clip from an interview with Ira Glass describing this phenomenon. He claims that it often takes years for people to bridge the gap between taste and capability. Most people aren't willing to keep trying for years. They will simply quit. As for me, I do a type of quiet quitting. A phrase I find profoundly sad when applied to *my* work. I shuffle items around on my todo lists, plan and prepare, and sometimes work until the pain of looking at what I've produced becomes unbearable. If I do manage to "finish" something the imperfection and lack of positive reception gnaws away any happiness that I might have had as I ruminate on how I could have done it better.
Why am I like this? That's the question I was asking and answering during therapy. Honestly, I think that when I boil away the soup of fears I'm left with a simple sludge of truth. I'm afraid of what people will think of me. Not strangers, as many internet folk fear, but the people who are closest to me. That they will realize I'm not the person they thought I was. That I'm actually a bad person, a pseudo-intellectual, etc. Why am I like this? Well, dear reader, that's what my life has always felt like. I was abused as a child, betrayed by "friends", and ultimately determined undesirable by my ex-wife. It's difficult not to hold a deep sense that I am the problem. The common theme among this series of suffering is me.
Why am I like this? Something fascinating happens when we ask why repeatedly. As we peel back the layers we reveal deeper meaning, but what's beneath the meaning? There is no answer. It's a simple absurdity of life. I may or may not be undesirable. I may or may not have been profoundly unlucky in life. I may or may not have been chosen by a higher power to suffer. So it goes. I think I just have to accept the hand that I've been dealt and do the best that I can. That's why I'm here writing this. Unedited. Unfiltered. Just words from my heart. I'm still afraid, but often times in life we just have to do things afraid.