The thing is, every time I think of self belief and fear and pursuit of dreams, I always think of me. I berate myself for being so afraid, thinking so small, not being consistent; there’s no end to the ways you can be unkind and ungracious to yourself. There’s a part I hadn’t considered until now- that me doesn’t exist alone in the world and society constantly sends messages validating or invalidating your existence. For so long, I was stuck in a loop of thinking “why if people appreciate my work do I find it so hard to place value on it”- but there’s a massive difference between what people say and what they do, and no-one feels that more than anyone trying to do something with a minimal chance of success. Yes people love your art but are they willing to pay for it? do they share it?
I don’t want to go too far in writing this before I point out that once again, this realisation is making me turn inwards because self belief and validation have to come from within- but also, it is about other people, in the sense that, you need money to survive and money follows validation.
I’ve always felt that push and pull between reality and dreams and the worst part of it is how much time it wastes on either side. I want to have a life that’s validated so that people don’t try to validate my dreams but then it’s a kind of half life between both paths. It would have taken less time and maybe less effort to focus on one. But the thing is, when I try, even for a short time, to focus on dreams, it doesn’t take much for reality to slap me in the face. At least when I’m trying reality, everyone can understand the hardships that come with that and can be more forgiving when you don’t succeed.
Listen, as long as we live in society, we can’t self belief our way out of things, but we can take an assessment of the reality of things and prepare for that.
This is one of the kind of posts I started my blog for- then I started to include my links in CV’s and portfolios and feel embarrassed for my recent post to just be an inarticulate emptying of my mind. Everything has to mean something…to someone else. When did I stop being able to do things that matter only to me? Is that in itself the paradox? Wanting to do things that matter to me and also want external validation for that? How do I do that…mentally? There’s no end for suggestions for how to “just do” things and on the right day, i’m an endless well of that kind of talk but today? I’m teary, I’m sad, I’m feeling foolish and rejected by rejections I’m throwing myself in the path of so that I can be a valid contributing member of society. I’m feeling like I’m too old for this specific life I’m living even though theoretical me will tell you I don’t believe in age stuff. The thing is I’m only human. Sometimes, my self protection mechanisms go so far that even I can start to believe in my own invicibility when in reality, I just want the same things everyone wants- of course I do, I live on earth as part of society. I remember something specific that someone told me in a group chat once when we were arguing about a tv show- “we let you speak a lot sometimes because you’re not very busy”- it was a statement that was designed to hurt and hurt it did, but it also spoke to my biggest fear of your biggest fears just being the truth of how people see you.
On that note, back to the job apps I go. Back to the nervous sharing of my current “rates” for people that request commissions fully expecting them to say no. Back to putting up my polls and photos and feeling foolish when something has no response. Back to publishing more stuff that gives me vulnerability hangovers. Back to trying and trying and making a note of my attempts to bolster up my right to be defensive when stuff isn’t working. Back to listening to pep talks from my friends and saying thank you but being unable to believe it when their words don’t match the reality of the real struggle I’m struggling in.