Rabbitch did a post on something I've been thinking about (yes, AGAIN.)

Part of it's been brought on by reading too much "Craftzine," part of it by reading the blogs of full-time artists, and part of it, just the whole messy discussion of "online cliques."

I read the posts and the entries and I look at what people have made. And when I'm in a generally happy and secure mode, I can go, wow, that's really awesome, she (or he) has a real talent. But when I'm not so happy and secure - when I'm overtired, and I feel like I've been putting out far more psychic energy than I get back, and when just the general state of the world and the stabbiness that seems to pass for "discourse" these days gets to me, I look at these blogs and just want to give up.

I'm not that creative. I'm not that talented. How do people get their ideas? How do they get brave enough to make stuff that might not work out - spending days and days of precious free time on something they might just dump in the trash?

Part of it, I realize, is that I just have to calm down and remind myself that I'm employed full-time (more than full-time, some weeks) at my main "gig" - being a professor and researcher. And I have a lot of "sub-gigs" like the Youth Group thing.* But you know? A lot of the time, to be honest, it's a pretty lonely gig - you don't get a lot of feedback and when you do get feedback, it's often negative.

(*I think part of the frustration and down-ness I am feeling at the moment is due to the fact that unbeknownst to me, a couple of the boys had a grape-fight in the boy's bathroom while they were waiting for dinner - walked right into the kitchen and took some of the grapes that had been washed and set out to be eaten later, and they messed up the bathroom. Of course, I heard about it, the implication being that it was somehow my fault, that even though I was cooking dinner and was in the church alone with no help, I was supposed to be watching a couple of 13 year old kids for every moment.)

Another thing I'm not good at is filtering (I've described it as "I need to be less permeable." I'm a biology geek through and through). I was reading an interview (in the NYT) of Ray Bradbury and he says at the end: “I don’t need to be vindicated, and I don’t want attention,” he said. “I never question. I never ask anyone else’s opinion. They don’t count.”

Wow. I mean, wow. Oh, I realize, I'm not Ray Bradbury, I never will be, I'm nobody - but how do you get to the point where you can tell yourself the opinion of someone else doesn't count? Sometimes I think that's the Holy Grail of happiness and self-security - being able to tell yourself that the naysayers don't matter, that the people who tell you what you're doing is crud aren't worth bothering with.

But I don't know how to get to that point. And I don't know if that point is even justified - I mean, how do you tell when someone is telling you the stuff you're doing is crummy is saying it to be mean-spirited, or to discourage you, or because they're insecure THEMSELVES and trying to make themselves feel better....and when is it that what you're doing really IS crummy and needs to be trashcanned?

I guess I spent too many years in school with some awfully harsh critics; if someone so much as breathes a word that something I've done is less than perfect, I'm ready to rip it up and never try whatever-it-was again.

(I used to play the clarinet. Used to enjoy it, even. Until an orchestra teacher basically insinuated I was wasting his time and mine because I would never be good enough to perform in a symphony orchestra. The clarinet still sits in the bottom of my closet at my parents' house. I really should give it away to someone who can use it, even though it's just a cheap student model.)

One of my quilting magazines came this afternoon. And I read it, and felt the joy drain out of me - all of those quilts are SO perfect. Most of them are designed totally out of the person's head, without any reference to existing patterns. Nothing I ever could do - even at my very best - even approaches what's in that magazine.

And I get the old feeling of "Why bother?" Why bother to make quilts, or knit, or sew, or anything - I'm not an artist. I'm mostly what is frequently derided as a "follower" of patterns by those souls who always make up their own.

So I don't know. I suppose I need to sit down and read some Susan Gordon Lydon again, or that book on knitting and spirituality that I've never yet finished, to remind myself that "why bother" isn't really a valid question even, when you're doing something like this. But right now I'm suffering from allergies and the humidity and tiredness and feeling like I'm not communicating right with anyone, and so it doesn't help for me to see all these beautiful things that people are making and that I tell myself I could make if only I had better talent or a better eye or were more of an artist or hadn't been told "not good enough" by most every Art teacher I ever had or if I weren't so scared of "wasting" my precious tiny bit of crafting time on a failed experiment...

I guess right now I'm feeling the reverse of Rabbitch's validation. I've never been good at standing up and saying "Damn, I'm good" (or even, "dang, I'm okay"). But sometimes it's worse than others. I've learned I just need to soldier on through those times, but sometimes, it's hard, when you feel like everyone around you is doing all this great stuff that's rightfully winning them praise. (And that's another thing, Mr. Bradbury: how do you grow out of the need for attention, the need to be noticed? I think that would be another Holy Grail of happiness). And you're not doing much of anything, you're just kind of going through the days praying for that moment when you can come home and take off your shoes "for good" for the evening...and you don't have a lot of YOU left at the end of the day.

(Sometimes I think that's it, with teaching - I expend enough of myself in a day in my daily dealings with students and others, that when I come home, doing something that involves "putting myself out there" a little - like trying something that might not succeed or be well-received - just doesn't appeal. It's like I need to draw inward and try to recharge for the next day)