Thursday, March 3, 2016

When Inspiration Gets... Scary.

A lot of the time when I get artist's blocks, I would offhandedly claim that I lack inspiration. "I need to get inspired!" I would think to myself, often writing "Get inspired!" on my daily checklists as a reminder to not wait for it to come and go looking for it instead.

But lately I've been noticing something happen a lot.. Something very curious and unexpected. I find myself being very inspired very often... And it doesn't make me feel better.

Instead it makes me feel scared, overwhelmed, and instead of adding clarity to the mess of bobbing ideas in my dirty bathtub of a mind it feels as if it just adds more noisy rubber duckies in the mix, squeaking, squawking, demanding my attention.

Listing ideas usually help, even if only to calm the anxiety symptoms these moments cause. Enabling me to try and lure the rubber duckies to form a straight line so I can deal with them one by one. (Sorry, I'm a little stuck in my rubber duckie metaphor.)


So I've had a change in priorities. Now I'm more about learning how to compile ideas that come up and being able to organize them in such a way that I can understand in the future. But the most important part that I'm dealing with is the one in which I have the most trouble with - following through. 

I'm trying to train my mind into finding it natural to actually work on things which feels sooo different from the imagining part. Coming up with ideas is something I'm alright at, it feels easy and natural, I can plan extensively in my head, come up with ways to do things... But once I need to execute, I'm like, wat is dis.

i actually just made this in memegenerator high five
Inspiration is useless if no work is created. It's merely a first step. Still, it's a thing that I lacked that I'm glad to have found. It's a step up. A box checked off. And that's what I want all of this to be about - not being perfect, just being better all the time.

What eases me to think about is the thought that I'm not failing anyone else as much as I'm failing myself.

Just kidding, that doesn't really comfort me much.

But it shifts my feelings of having to appear alright to wanting to just be alright. To allow myself to be in the thick of the struggle, to get my hands dirty, get embarassed, fail, be rejected, and hopefully after everything, learn things I can use as I go along.

So yeah. That's where I am right now.

Knowing my faults is key.

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