The issue with letting the critic in, is that I forget to show him out when it’s time to be creative again. I want to present a certain face so I can get the attention I want. I know some of what others want to hear. I’m very goal oriented and I want to line things up in their correct space so that everything is right. Tweaked until the right item is in the right spot. Then adjusted and then moved again. Until it becomes a second nature. It is almost as if we are the ones who are being tuned and learning the rhythm instead of the music being adjusted. I often feel that I am the one who is being calibrated to be sensitive for whatever new job I take on. But sometimes I can be wrong about the right action.
I think that is what I love about new things. I love stepping into the chaos, the uncertainty, and learning the feel of the situation. It’s like walking into a choir practice. The voices are warming up and practicing their various parts. I’m not a musician or vocalist by the way so I don’t have much knowledge of music, only enough to know I know jack squat about music. My dad played by ear and my mom was in a group and sang for a time as a teenager, but I didn’t inherit their talent. Off the subject, but I did learn that my paternal grandfather had a radio show and he would play his ukulele when he was younger. See there is talent in the family. Without a standard in front of me, my obsessiveness doesn’t kick in and I feel free to explore. The child in me wants to play and no one plays well with the critic sitting nearby. So for a time he has to be quiet and go back down to the basement.
“Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit;
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.”
~ Miles Kington~
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