the slacker / perfectionist dilemma, iteration #1,253
Here's the thing: If I were more consistently a perfectionist, or more consistently high-strung, Friday's poetry reading would now be looming ominously on the horizon of my week, and I would be frantically working to get some poems into shape because I would be anxious about what people would think of me if I didn't seem smart, prepared, etc.
As it is, my attitude is pretty much "well, the reading's going to go on whether I'm prepared or not, whether I read old poems or new poems, and the worst that can happen is that I'll bore people for ten minutes and make everybody else look really good." Which is great, in that I'm not nervous and in that I'm being fairly pragmatic about trying to decide what to tinker with in which poems. This laid-back attitude is courtesy of a long and varied career of slacking even on things that I genuinely love and enjoy. I'm a remarkably accomplished underachiever.
The problem is, I know perfectly well that after the poetry reading I will second-guess myself and beat myself up about my choices -- that I will be unhappy if I read only older poems, or if I read newer ones that I don't really feel should be let out in public yet. I cannot actually get myself into that headspace now, so as to forestall it, but I know it's coming.
Sometimes self-knowledge is incredibly irritating.
As it is, my attitude is pretty much "well, the reading's going to go on whether I'm prepared or not, whether I read old poems or new poems, and the worst that can happen is that I'll bore people for ten minutes and make everybody else look really good." Which is great, in that I'm not nervous and in that I'm being fairly pragmatic about trying to decide what to tinker with in which poems. This laid-back attitude is courtesy of a long and varied career of slacking even on things that I genuinely love and enjoy. I'm a remarkably accomplished underachiever.
The problem is, I know perfectly well that after the poetry reading I will second-guess myself and beat myself up about my choices -- that I will be unhappy if I read only older poems, or if I read newer ones that I don't really feel should be let out in public yet. I cannot actually get myself into that headspace now, so as to forestall it, but I know it's coming.
Sometimes self-knowledge is incredibly irritating.