Days of Shades

New years are for unrepentant self-reflection, right?

Epiphany-the-first: This too shall pass
My first real employer's only complaint about my work was that I got defensive when criticized, and I took it to heart. It's importance was drilled in again when I was studying art and graphic design. It's the second most useful thing we learned, I think, after how to give constructive criticism.

I've had ample opportunity to put my practice to the test, and I've realized something: I never learned how not to be defensive. I'm not sure if I can. What I learned was how to make that defensive reaction pass in a shorter and shorter amount of time. It's quick. At most, I have to sleep on something before the negativity transforms into glee (someone paid enough attention to offer me critique! I have direction now! TO THE DRAWING BOARD! etc). Sometimes it only takes a single deep breath.

After more than a decade of conscious work, I haven't managed to expunge this negative trait from my character -- but it has become (usually) such a fleeting thing that it doesn't affect anyone around me.

Today during yoga I realized that a reduction in duration, rather than intensity, applies to some other negative reactions, too. After a few weeks of missed practice, and the usual winter-sedentary knee issues, there were a few poses that left me quivering, feeling the same flood of total infirmity that I used to feel in physical therapy, or when I tried that awful spin cycle class in school. It's like being hit by a freight train carrying a shipment of industrial strength 'I can't.' I know I'll experience the same thing in spring when I get back on my bike. Despite having biked a frickin' century.

This time, though, like in yoga, it will pass. It's still intense, but it's not crippling because it doesn't hang around.

So. Manage to be motivated not by 'not being negative' but by letting the negativity come... and go. Here, let Alan sing to you:



Epiphany-the-second: I am an Expert Beginner:
I have some friends who are so good at what they do, and have been good at it for so long, that they're very bad beginners. It'stoo jarring for them to go from a position of expertise to one of bumbling newbie. I have the opposite problem.

I first realized how freeing it was to be a beginner when I took a fiber arts class. Not having any background in it, it was the least stressful art class I'd ever taken, because I didn't have standards for myself beyond 'don't dye myself blue' and/or 'don't get caught in the loom.'.

I'm a good beginner, too -- in my early twenties a few switches flipped, and I went from that awkward nerdy "must hide my ignorance" to a gleeful "I'm a beginner: Teach me!" attitude. People like being set-up as the expert, and you can learn a lot that way. It's easy for me to enjoy, because I really am a fast learner -- at the beginning.

I'm not so hot at follow-through. The lure of trying something new, where I'll have no reason to judge myself, is trong, especially compared to how reliably awful I feel once I move to the intermediate level, or feel I should have moved to the intermediate level.



It's most noticeable with art, esp. drawing. I should be better than I am. I took classes, I have a degree, I've been doing it for years, but I'm still at the 'talented beginner' stage. I believe it's mostly my lack of regular practice, but it's discouraging.

Luckily, this is where Epiphany One comes into play. Two nights ago I spent two hours coloring a picture. I spent most of those two hours flipping back and forth between "I have no business pretending I can make art" and "Ooh, this is fun!" If I'd spent the whole two hours in the glum stage, it would have been awful, but when it comes and goes in flashes, I can handle it -- at least enough to keep going.

For someone who's already a Jane-of-all-trades generalist, an addiction to being a beginner is a problem. The next level of anything requires focus and practice, and the more new skills I half-have, the more scattered I become. There's a distinction between "generalist" and "easily distractible," but you won't find it by lookin' at me.

I'm not giving up on my addiction to being a newbie: I just made arrangements for a month of vocal lessons, for fishes' sakes. It's something I'll be thinking about, though.