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complacency vs. apathy

December 16, 2015 / / 1 Comment

The other night I had a dream in which I was in a ladies room somewhere when an acquaintance walked in and asked if session started at nine or nine-thirty, and it was a few minutes to nine already. I was suddenly reminded that I was supposed to go to my college class but didn’t know where I was supposed to go. I started digging through my bag for my schedule. Not only did I not have a binder or schedule of any kind, but my bag was ripped and everything was falling out. I tried to put all of the smaller items into side pockets of the bag, then frantically went on my phone to see if I could go online to find info about where my class was. That’s when I woke up.

I’ve often had dreams in which I’m back in school and I don’t know where I’m supposed to go. I think this is a different form of stress dream than the ones in which I’m driving and suddenly am in complete darkness. In the latter, I am completely out of control and just have to take it on faith and intuition that I won’t crash and die, even though that seems inevitable and I always wake up just before that happens. The school dreams, I think, reveal a theme of not being prepared.

Last week I forgot to write a blog post. It’s not that I didn’t feel like it or that I was too busy. I just completely forgot. I’ve lately been taking it kind of easy as far as not making myself feel guilty for not writing or drawing or painting as much as I “should.” I say “should” because I really do feel the need to hone a skill and uncover what type of thing I’d like to be doing on the side. I don’t want to work my day job forever, and it’s time I started overlapping into something. I’ve been saying this for too long, and that’s where the guilt over not producing my own work comes in.

But I gave myself the excuse that it’s December and there’s a lot of holiday business to be done, as well as simply relaxing and enjoying the season. I took up a crochet project, which I worked on while watching Christmas movies on my day off. I didn’t let myself feel guilty about this.

However, I fear that I’ve settled into complacency. I gave myself a little too much permission to slack off. It’s not that I don’t care; the symptom isn’t apathy. It’s that I’ve let myself get comfortable with less. Complacency is a silent symptom that creeps in when things are good. You’re happy and comfortable. A little discomfort is sometimes needed to keep you driven.

I think the difference between apathy and complacency is this: apathy is not caring whether the sun is rising or setting because a general malaise of dissatisfaction has made you give up on being driven. Complacency is being equally delighted with the sunrise and sunset to the point that you’re just floating through a sea of “isn’t that nice?” and forgetting that you have an itch to scratch. You’re too busy smelling the flowers to remember that there are things you ought to do to keep you moving forward.

“When it is rose leaves all the way, we soon become drowsy; thorns are necessary to wake us.” John A. Shedd

I’m grateful to be in a place in my life in which I’m content. I’m very blessed, and I think this is a fine place for anyone to be in life if they are so fortunate—especially if it is with an attitude of gratefulness. However, it can be tempting to be content with mediocrity. I was brought up believing that it is a virtue to strive for excellence. While worry and guilt are poor motivators, you are responsible for your own success. Don’t expect success if you don’t prepare for it.

A little while back I got a fortune cookie with what I believe is a quote from John Shedd: “A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not why ships are built.” I want another thing he said to be true of me: “Fate whispers to the warrior ‘You cannot withstand the storm,’ and the warrior whispers back, ‘I am the storm.’”

I don’t want to be content to be a ship in port. I want to be the freaking storm.

making good creases

December 2, 2015 / / 0 Comments

It’s already December, and while I haven’t done an awful lot of my own creative work lately, I have already wrapped all of my Christmas gifts. One way I love to decorate gifts is with origami ornaments. It’s a fun way to add a decorative pop of color and a personal touch. This is about the only time of year that I do any origami, and I always think how fun and relaxing it is and that I should do it more often. Once you know the basics, it’s kind of a zen-like hobby. It’s amazing what you can do with nothing more than a single sheet of 6 x 6″ paper.

One important thing about the art of origami is not only making precise folds, but making strong ones. A good fold is one that you’ve creased very hard, and sometimes one that has been folded back and forth several times to make a crease that will go either direction later. Sometimes you’ll need a mountain fold (wrong sides of the paper are together so the crease makes a peak) and sometimes you’ll need a valley fold (right sides of the paper are together so that the crease forms a “V”). Often you’ll have made twenty or thirty folds, then unfold it completely just to make one little fold go a different direction before you continue. Steps 1-30 were just the groundwork for you to be able to go back and make that one little pocket fold in step 31. If you made good folds, getting back to step 31 will be effortless.

There’s a lot of groundwork to origami. 90% of the piece consists of preliminary folds that won’t look anything like the finished product until the very end.

Sometimes a lot of our work can feel insignificant or fruitless. We can feel like we’re doing a lot of work for nothing, or for no audience. But perhaps it’s important to remember that much of what we do is akin to the preliminary folds that build the foundation of the finished product; without which our desired results would not be possible. Everything done with the end in mind helps to wear a groove into your workflow to make the next step in the process that much easier, either this time or next time or the next one hundred times. When you are on step thirty and it feels like you have to undo everything you’ve already done, remember that it made step thirty-one possible, and that you’re on your way toward your end goal. Both mountains and valleys have made the rest of the work possible. It may not look like much even 90% of the way through, but when you achieve what you set out to do, the seemingly meaningless preparatory steps will have been well worth it.

a grateful mindset

November 25, 2015 / / 0 Comments

It is the season of giving thanks, and I’ve been thinking about what that means in the context of living a creative life. An attitude of gratefulness plays a huge role in overcoming Resistance. A negative mindset is a huge mental roadblock—in everything, but in creativity particularly. Recognizing what has been given to you has an overwhelmingly positive reach into the rest of your psyche. Grateful people are just more pleasant to be around, and those positive vibes are reciprocated by those who see that attitude. That positive feedback loop can fuel you for a long time. Do you ever have one of those days where you think, “Wow, I feel pretty good. It’s a good day, I can do anything!” A mindset of gratefulness—and being around similarly positive people—can help maintain the momentum of that conquer-the-world feeling. It’s contagious.

When you’re grateful for the skills you have, it’s less likely that you’ll beat yourself up for not living up to your full potential. If you’re grateful for the ability to do work that you love, you’ll jump into it wholeheartedly and silence the inner critic. You will ipso facto be more productive. Guilt over not being productive enough, like most negative reinforcement, is a weak motivator. If you are reading this on the internet right now, chances are you live in a world of freedom and opportunity. You’re allowed to do nearly anything, and you have talent and skill. Be glad about this and let it empower you to do great things. You may inspire others in turn.

Happy Thanksgiving, dear readers!

fear of futility

November 18, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Do you ever get tired of feeling guilty for not producing enough? For me, in the middle of National Novel Writing Month, this novel writing business is proving to be something hanging over my head rather than an enjoyable activity; I feel like I’m letting it defeat me.

Life is too short to not do something meaningful, but it will feel a lot longer than you’d like if you continually beat yourself up for not being perfect. It’s a catch-22. You will never meet your own standards, and that subconscious idea that perfection is the goal is completely paralyzing. Isn’t it better to just get something done rather than beat yourself up over something that you barely even started?

I know I have these unspoken, arbitrary, lofty standards. But what’s the point of such high standards if I’m incapable of meeting them? If I’m so afraid of failure that I never accomplish anything? If I have nothing to show for all my showing up, then I have failed. If I just do it I have succeeded. Isn’t the latter easier? What is keeping me from just doing the work to even 75% of my standards? There’s time for revision later. Why can’t I just do it? What am I so afraid of? Why do I feel like I’m not even capable? There are millions of people in the world doing what I’m doing. I know I can do it just as well or better than most of them, but not all of them. Being the best isn’t even the point. So what is it that causes me so much anxiety and paralysis?

It’s Resistance with a capital R. I’ve been showing up every day and trying to get out of my own way so the muse can show up. Shouldn’t that be enough to banish Resistance? Why is it still rearing its ugly head? What psychological roadblocks am I not seeing? It’s not fear of success, because finishing the first draft of a novel doesn’t really require anything of me after it’s done. I can roll with it or not. It can’t be the fear of failure because the only way to fail at writing is to not write. A draft is malleable. I can always fix what isn’t perfect. There are only words, and my only failure is not putting them on the page. I’m sure part if it is that little nagging dark force telling me that this isn’t what I should be doing. I should give up. I’m not a writer. I should either move on to some other creative pursuit (which I also won’t be good at) or just give up. Resistance is manifesting itself as both inadequacy and futility. What’s the point of all of this? My work doesn’t matter. My work won’t matter. So what’s the point of doing it? Why show up every day and pour my heart out? What are my blood, sweat, and tears going to accomplish in the end? I struggle to find the meaning and purpose in any of it. Who am I helping by showing up to write every day?

Somewhat ironically, the novel I’m struggling to write deals with immortality and youth. I ask myself why a character would want to live much longer, even with the benefits of youth. My thought was that many people wouldn’t know how to handle living more than a hundred years, that only those with an exceptional sense of purpose and joy would want to go on living. If you outlived all of your loved ones, what would keep you going? Albert Camus said that it takes more courage to live than to commit suicide, and that happiness (even for Sisyphus) is to enjoy your work in spite of the apparent futility of existence. I think the drive to create is stronger than the desire for immortality. Creativity, in one form or another, is where souls find their purpose. It’s how we make sense out of the lives we are living, and helps us and others enjoy that life. It brings context and clarifies meaning for us as we try to imagine what forever might be like. The need to create is a very strong human calling, and when I feel creatively blocked, I start to lose my sense of purpose, direction, joy, and meaning. Guilt creeps in.

Piled on top of personal guilt is the public shame of not having a word count on the NaNoWriMo site for my novel. This feels like a huge failure. Maybe it is a failure at the moment, but the entire project hasn’t failed. I am not a failure. I am a person who matters, who loves to write, and will write my heart out. Even if it feels like it doesn’t matter. Defeat is a mindset. The only thing causing me to fail is the idea that I’m not good enough. If I show up and write in spite of that voice in my head, I’ve won.

It’s frustrating to say that the cure for creative block is to just create, but time and again that’s the answer that reveals itself. Feel like you can’t do it? Just show up and do it. Simply doing anything creative usually helps to make the guilt of creative block go away, even if it’s not related to what you want to accomplish. If you’ve been staring at a blank page for a while, get up and go outside with your sketch book or make some bread. Every act of making something helps to bring you back to your center and remind you of the joy of creating without the pressure of meaning or perfection. It’s in your DNA to create, so find something–however small and seemingly insignificant–to make that makes you happy and don’t feel guilty about counting that as a success. It’s part of showing up to your work. If you showed up, you’ve won.

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