Withholding Your Own Creative Endeavours

Have you ever become so excited about something and absolutely convinced yourself that when you started spouting out the words about whatever it is that fired you up that they would sound so profound that they would become instantly infectious and hence you would easily be able to share your experience, as well as enhance the life of the person receiving your “enthusiastic verbal waterfall”? 

But, yes there is a “but” in most things in life, when you attempted to share what it was that ignited your exhilarated state, the words sounded bland and flat and you pulled them back in on yourself wishing that you never uttered them or shared them in the first place.

This could also be relative to music, poetry, art, ideas … you know, anything that fits into the realm of creativity.

This is analogous with certain aspects of my own creativity. Most of the time I don’t have the confidence to share my creations with other people.

What started off sounding or looking absolutely amazing to me can easily end up in a pile of mush, squashed and battered so badly that I wanted to retract my initial desire to share.

It’s like I want an instantaneous positive response from somewhere or somebody else that will then give strength and credibility to my own creation, that I initially felt good or even great about anyway. Go figure!!

I’ve spent my whole life doing this to myself apart from the times when I completely lost myself playing music, improvising without any time to think about what is coming out and then I couldn’t give a shit about what anyone else thought because the act and moment of creation was just that.

A moment of creation that I was able to celebrate for what it was and not what it could be in the eyes of others.

Imagine if a farmer needed an audience to watch him planting and nurturing his soil and seeds. An admiring audience who applauded his every action. The observers could not possibly imagine or perceive the love, skill and care he imparts upon his quest to grow nourishing food and all the parts that go to create the end result. All they care about is the outcome of rich soil, nourishing crops.

This might be enough to drive him into apathy and cause him to take shortcuts and have no more desire to do the best he possibly can.

I believe I have just unlocked a huge door that has been blocking my willingness to just create for the joy of it. Always wanting to share with others to gain their admiration has only resulted in losses, self imposed at that. I have created my own invisible prison and my own bars by not just accepting what it is that I have created but re-visiting it with a far too critical outlook that puts out the fire that I felt in the first place.

Creative self destruction, self imposed censorship, withholding my own communication.