Your Fear of Creative Stupor Should Be Greater Than Your Fear of Criticism
Death is your friend
“You can either be judged because you created something or ignored because you left your greatness inside of you. Your call.” — James Clear
I know all the excuses and self-defeating affirmations, because I only recently overcame the fear of sharing my most heartfelt work.
I realised that this fear was almost exclusively driven by worrying about negative feedback. This was consolidated with the ultimate procrastinator and thief of self-esteem; the desire to first “perfect” my craft.
As a writer, to keep my work hidden away was akin to keeping myself hidden away. I wrote myself in words more than I spoke myself in conversation.
Although I was happily introverted, there was a light shining within me and nobody could see it because I kept all the doors closed.
It suddenly seemed ridiculous that I would hide my version of me due to worries about ‘their’ versions of me — whoever the amorphous, faceless, nameless ‘they’ are. Bizarrely, I was trying to protect a false ego from my real ego. In short, I was courting a delusion.
If we must nurture the socially constructed ego, let it at least be the one we would prefer to show the world — whatever the world thinks of it. We cannot sacrifice our dreams at the altar of social acceptance.
Despite the fear of disapproval, the main way I have motivated myself to share my work is to put all those nagging doubts to the side and consider one absolute certainty: death.
Memento mori — “remember you must die” — is the kick that many creative amateurs need in order to decide if they are sincere or just playing around. If what you are doing is just a hobby, that’s fine. Let it be something you can do to express yourself or entertain yourself or relax.
However, if you know that your creative talent should be your life’s primary pursuit, you need to get real about the time allocated to you. For starters, you do not have any idea how much time you have. If you had a short-term prognosis of a terminal disease, you would attempt to realise your dreams like there really is no tomorrow.
But all life is terminal. You may or may not have the next two decades, two years, two months, or even two days. Rather than shy away from this unknown, you must embrace it. While it is a cliché to say “Live each day like your last, one day you’ll be right,” it is also wise.
Some people take this to mean we must embark on unsustainable hedonism — and we’re more likely to meet Death early if we do. But it’s not a call to hedonism: it’s a call for the dreamer to become a doer.
In this respect, death is not to be feared. Death is a friend reminding you to do what you love and make the most of the present moment. Death is a friend urging you to get your affairs in order. Death will put a full stop at the end of your life and underline all the punctuations.
The punctuations are the things that made you who you are. Ultimately, they don’t matter. Once you have succumbed to Death, you will no longer care what you did or didn’t do with your life. Yet from our vantage point on this side of the great leveller, it is of the utmost importance.
Your work is not important in itself, just as no human life is inherently more or less important than any other.
In the great scheme of things, your work is the work of making the meaningless meaningful.
Life calls you to make the most of the opportunity of a few decades of self-conscious existence: to curate and create your human experience in such a way that you may live a life in flow and wonder.
To have the chance to pursue your dreams when so many don’t is a privilege. But it serves nobody to be ashamed of this privilege and deny yourself what you know you are capable of. You never know who may have a life-changing revelation by dint of you sharing your story or your vision.
For all the editing and uncertainty, there will be clarity and clarification. For all the self-doubt and reluctance, there will be courage and relief. For all the critics and haters, there will be compliments and lovers.
Always remember those lovers; while love of your art is why you create, it is love of those lovers that gives you a reason to share. The creative person may protect their time fiercely in the throes of creation and birth, but their selfishness is forgiven in the unveiling of new art.
This is the way you give of yourself. A creative person who keeps their joy of creating locked away is like a pitiful solitary lovebird. Yet nobody is really seeking pity, least of all someone who knows they can paint or write or dance new worlds into being.
Art is a private passion, but it is reified through its ability to stir the passions of others.
“The true joy in life is to be a force of fortune instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.” — George Bernard Shaw
Let’s not be those selfish little clods. Let’s be the forces of fortune who share generously of our work without attachment to outcomes — least of all the attachment to unfounded fears of criticism or disapproval.
If you must let fear motivate you, let it be the fear of an empty epitaph.
