Recently I've been noticing and trying to trying to deconstruct the many layers of fear I have wrapped around vidding. ( cut for boring introspective stuff )
That sounds really sucky, sorry you're having to deal with that and I hope you can figure out ways of working around it to be happy with what you choose to create and how you choose to share it (or not)
Would people saying nice things about you and/or your vids be helpful or harmful right now? Because I have some (sincere! Insincere compliments when you feel self conscious are a badness) things I could say, and I'm sure that will be other people's first reaction, but I don't want to poke at a sore point inadvertently (as often happens with me when people well meaningly try to cheer me up).
It's taken me a long time to come to terms with the possibility of being crap and to not let that possibility stop me making and sharing things, and it still paralyzes me sometimes. Ug. Brains! Can't live with them, can't live without them! *offers virtual cake*
Oh there are a million worse things to deal with! But thanks. :) Thanks also for you sensitivity regarding compliments--you are right that they can be problematic at such a time. I wasn't fishing for them, but I appreciate your offer. Actually just the companionship offered in your comment means more than compliments could probably! My mind is horribly sieve-like with compliments--I blank them out and forget they occurred (presumably as a 'better' option to destroying myself or the thing praised?), which is really rude to people who bothered to give them! So save your breath, but share the cake with me by all means, since clearly you 'get it' and struggle with similar tricksy brain issues!
Reading through your reactions to praise for creative works from other people, and your own resulting impulses… Have you considered that destroying the things you create allows you to remove the ability of others to influence you? If someone's words have no meaning and you ignore them, nothing happens. If someone praises your work and you accept that praise, you could consider yourself to be giving them a form of influence over you - their praise could be taken back at some point in the future, and used as a method to criticise or control you. Destroying anything that gains praise prevents anyone being able to give you comments with value or weight, and thereby removes that foothold they have in you - it could be considered a strong defensive reaction. So long as nobody notices or praises what you do, the only opinion you have is your own, and there's no risk of anyone else being able to influence you.
Huh. My first reaction was a flippant, 'me, a control freak?! never! :p' one, but I think you've actually hit on something really fundamental. I guess behind the anger, you're right: there was fear. Which... yeah, ok, I know where that comes from. At least I think I do--my father's praise always felt like a threat.
I can't remember ever thinking this was a problem--in each case I just felt very angry and wanted to show people that my output wasn't good enough in my eyes, which is what really counted, and that they were being patronising and I wouldn't stand for such bullshit.
I don’t need your pity, Lee! (c)
Thing is, I've had these in me since I was a tiny child. About anything I made ever. I can list dozens of instances when I was a kid when I tore up, smashed, threw away or otherwise destroyed things that I made. Usually the prompt to do so was someone praising it.
Do you know exactly where this is coming from? When you were little, have you ever had people praising your work only to tell you it’s shit a bit later or criticize it behind your back?
I can make sense of this behaviour when I think that I was considering the pieces as a reflection of myself, and destroying them was an attempt to say 'no! I'm not ok! I hate myself and it makes me so angry and you guys DON'T GET IT!' Which is all kinds of fucked up, yes, but definitely has the
( ... )
I don't know where it comes from... I wish I did! I have tried tracing back in my head and I came to an early memory of doing it at age 3? So wherever it comes from, it came super-early. The best I can come up with is that being praised didn't feel 'safe' in my family--it felt, yeah, controlling and like a threat of violence to come. I guess I preempted the violence by enacting it myself first--against the things that got praised.
The vidder part just feels so selfish. Like why would I spend time making mediocre vids myself if I could spend the time instead reading other people's masterpieces? It's only ego that would make me do that, right? Only the feeling that I could somehow produce something good?
Why are you eager to be producing something exceptional? Anything exceptional can generate envy and anger from others if you identify yourself with that “exceptional work”. And then the distance between you and them gets more and more substantial
( ... )
And then the distance between you and them gets more and more substantial. Yes, absolutely! And that sounds AWFUL. I don't want that, when you put it that way. Maybe it's partly why I've found my zen recently about my actual creations (even if I still fight the impulse to keep creating).
Who would you trust?No one. Which is your point! I was thinking about what you wrote about ego in your last email, actually--this post is partly influenced by that. I like your description of the dozing ego that is dangerous when woken up. Yes--I block praise and yes, I'm afraid of being arrogant. I think it may not be that I've exactly depended on other people's praise in the past--more that there's a huge hole inside me and always was and it would take so much to fill it up and give me faith in myself, if I feel one tiny drop fall into the hole it just makes me realise how much more it would take to feel complete. Which is the HEIGHT of arrogance and demands on others, so I quickly make sure I'm not at all dependent on other people's praise
( ... )
Yes, absolutely! And that sounds AWFUL. I don't want that, when you put it that way.
I know you don't. I don't want that either. The main solution I see is to try shifting your focal point from "creating something good" to remaining true to your heart in progress (I know you vid from heart, so it should make sense). As soon as you create some space between your work result (which is somewhere in the future, it doesn't exist yet) and the process, what you want to be saying visually each of the given moments - flight freedom comes, you get more inventive and crazy, intuitive when logic doesn't prove to be fruitful and so on.
if I feel one tiny drop fall into the hole it just makes me realise how much more it would take to feel complete.
Hmm... I know... I wish you could see that you're already complete. But then I could say the same about myself.
your vidder part may become less selfish if you watch it closely on a daily basis
( ... )
omg, this resonates so much with things in my head and life right now that *I am actually kind of scared* (good way). And in my own narcissistic way I will thank you for your timing, because you've catalyzed some self-counseling in me as well. So if I don't manage to say anything else of substance in this I'd like to say: Thank you for sharing this. I realize/appreciate this was entirely for you, but it's helpful (a relief?) to be reminded that while one may indeed be a very special snowflake, one is not quite so *agonizingly* unique :)
ANYWAY, if I, having met you all of once, I may be so presumptuous as to respond:
But how much of my slowness is self-sabotage and 'freezing' emotionally because I'm so fucking scared of the creative part of myself and so ready to destroy it?This sounds familiar, and answer is probably "quite a lot". You are probably quite busy, with time commitments that do genuinely take your time/energy away. However, I refer you to the list of things you have been doing instead of vidding (although you've
( ... )
Oh, that's great! That it resonates with someone, I mean. As you say, it's quite a relief to have some of these feelings 'normalised' by hearing other people experience similar struggles.
And yes, exactly: I do have genuine time commitments, but I also can recognise procastination when I see it! I run my own business from home and if I wasn't good at nipping procrastination in the bud I'd be broke by now. ;) I think the only other thing I avoid to this degree is ... housework. :p With the obvious difference that I don't actually want to do it!
I so relate to the needing external factors to kick one to vid! I find vidding for other people to be a big motivator for me--especially people who don't vid themselves but have a really cool idea for a vid. And I curse deadlines terribly but they do push me constructively! I do so much ridiculous faffing around when I vid. I doubt a tenth of the time I spend 'vidding' is actually spent vidding! But with a deadline looming I don't have to rely solely on my internal state of (conflicted!)
( ... )
Comments 19
Would people saying nice things about you and/or your vids be helpful or harmful right now? Because I have some (sincere! Insincere compliments when you feel self conscious are a badness) things I could say, and I'm sure that will be other people's first reaction, but I don't want to poke at a sore point inadvertently (as often happens with me when people well meaningly try to cheer me up).
It's taken me a long time to come to terms with the possibility of being crap and to not let that possibility stop me making and sharing things, and it still paralyzes me sometimes. Ug. Brains! Can't live with them, can't live without them! *offers virtual cake*
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I'm the same with hugs (another thing "everyone" likes)
There's always worse things, doesn't mean it doesn't suck!
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I don’t need your pity, Lee! (c)
Thing is, I've had these in me since I was a tiny child. About anything I made ever. I can list dozens of instances when I was a kid when I tore up, smashed, threw away or otherwise destroyed things that I made. Usually the prompt to do so was someone praising it.
Do you know exactly where this is coming from? When you were little, have you ever had people praising your work only to tell you it’s shit a bit later or criticize it behind your back?
I can make sense of this behaviour when I think that I was considering the pieces as a reflection of myself, and destroying them was an attempt to say 'no! I'm not ok! I hate myself and it makes me so angry and you guys DON'T GET IT!' Which is all kinds of fucked up, yes, but definitely has the ( ... )
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Heh.
I don't know where it comes from... I wish I did! I have tried tracing back in my head and I came to an early memory of doing it at age 3? So wherever it comes from, it came super-early. The best I can come up with is that being praised didn't feel 'safe' in my family--it felt, yeah, controlling and like a threat of violence to come. I guess I preempted the violence by enacting it myself first--against the things that got praised.
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Why are you eager to be producing something exceptional? Anything exceptional can generate envy and anger from others if you identify yourself with that “exceptional work”. And then the distance between you and them gets more and more substantial ( ... )
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Yes, absolutely! And that sounds AWFUL. I don't want that, when you put it that way. Maybe it's partly why I've found my zen recently about my actual creations (even if I still fight the impulse to keep creating).
Who would you trust?No one. Which is your point! I was thinking about what you wrote about ego in your last email, actually--this post is partly influenced by that. I like your description of the dozing ego that is dangerous when woken up. Yes--I block praise and yes, I'm afraid of being arrogant. I think it may not be that I've exactly depended on other people's praise in the past--more that there's a huge hole inside me and always was and it would take so much to fill it up and give me faith in myself, if I feel one tiny drop fall into the hole it just makes me realise how much more it would take to feel complete. Which is the HEIGHT of arrogance and demands on others, so I quickly make sure I'm not at all dependent on other people's praise ( ... )
Reply
I know you don't. I don't want that either. The main solution I see is to try shifting your focal point from "creating something good" to remaining true to your heart in progress (I know you vid from heart, so it should make sense). As soon as you create some space between your work result (which is somewhere in the future, it doesn't exist yet) and the process, what you want to be saying visually each of the given moments - flight freedom comes, you get more inventive and crazy, intuitive when logic doesn't prove to be fruitful and so on.
if I feel one tiny drop fall into the hole it just makes me realise how much more it would take to feel complete.
Hmm... I know... I wish you could see that you're already complete. But then I could say the same about myself.
your vidder part may become less selfish if you watch it closely on a daily basis ( ... )
Reply
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ANYWAY, if I, having met you all of once, I may be so presumptuous as to respond:
But how much of my slowness is self-sabotage and 'freezing' emotionally because I'm so fucking scared of the creative part of myself and so ready to destroy it?This sounds familiar, and answer is probably "quite a lot". You are probably quite busy, with time commitments that do genuinely take your time/energy away. However, I refer you to the list of things you have been doing instead of vidding (although you've ( ... )
Reply
And yes, exactly: I do have genuine time commitments, but I also can recognise procastination when I see it! I run my own business from home and if I wasn't good at nipping procrastination in the bud I'd be broke by now. ;) I think the only other thing I avoid to this degree is ... housework. :p With the obvious difference that I don't actually want to do it!
I so relate to the needing external factors to kick one to vid! I find vidding for other people to be a big motivator for me--especially people who don't vid themselves but have a really cool idea for a vid. And I curse deadlines terribly but they do push me constructively! I do so much ridiculous faffing around when I vid. I doubt a tenth of the time I spend 'vidding' is actually spent vidding! But with a deadline looming I don't have to rely solely on my internal state of (conflicted!) ( ... )
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