Day 13 of uploading to the blog everyday.
I've been thinking a lot about the things that are stopping me. I have all these creative ideas that I never follow through on, even if I have faith in them as interesting ideas. Eventually, I either lose faith in the idea/project or convince myself it is not worth pursuing (people won't like it, it's unoriginal etc).
A fear of failure seems to be a fairly understandable reason for not wanting to try. It's easy to tell yourself things like, "I don't want to try in case I fail and look stupid" or "I don't want to try because I will fail and might as well save the time and effort." But for whatever reason, I feel embarrassed trying at all. Even trying and succeeding is still somehow wrong because trying is wrong.
I don't know where this poisonous frame of mind has come from but it accounts for so much of my unattractive self-pity and loathing. And simply being aware of it is not enough to counteract its affects.
Take ugly golf sweaters, for example. I do genuinely make an effort with my appearance, but not to look the smartest or sharpest - I make an effort to look like I haven't made an effort. And when an occasion requires me to wear a suit, I feel genuinely uncomfortable with the idea that people would think I am making an effort. Why?
And with this blog it's the same. I've thought about ways I can try and spread the word - pushing the Instagram more to try and get people to the blog - but there is something so uncool about genuinely trying to achieve something. Is that the problem, that it's not cool? Could it really be that simplistic?
Maybe it is. Maybe this unwillingness to try is actually a weird egotistical paradox where I care too much about how I am perceived and therefore do not want to try, but then perceive myself unfavourably because I never amount to anything or achieve the goals I set myself.
Maybe my unwillingness to try is just fucking laziness.
I had a realisation a couple weeks ago that every piece of art in the world is just a creative project somebody never stopped themselves from doing. Everything from the greatest painting to the shittiest song was done by someone who could have, but never did stop themselves.
And so to create anything at all, all you have to do is not stop yourself.
It's about damn time I stopped stopping myself.
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