Writing Vs Writing

There is a lot of evidence that people who are good at something get better when peers are watching them do it but people who are not "experts" do worse. I recall something vague about cockroaches in bleachers in one study.

I wonder what compels us to move beyond the starting stages of "not so great at..." to "look at me expert". Much of my life I have hid what I felt best at and avoided praise when I got "caught" being good at something. I believed it was humility I was practicing.

Every so many trips around the sun I choose a hobby and pursue it with some minor degree of conviction. When I was a middle schooler I would walk a couple miles from my house up a hill (usually as the sun was going down) and write poetry. Most of it was about how I felt, how hard it was to be a shy person in a hard be out there world. At first I was just happy to be writing. Then I showed some to a couple teachers. Suddenly what I did for myself became something I wanted approval from others for. How quickly my joy fled when I opened myself up to the scrutiny and evaluation of others. I don;t really write poetry anymore. Cooking, swing dancing, short story writing, board game design, massage therapy have all followed similar spirals, though the ellipse has grown wider and the time it takes for the joy to completely leave, and the growing need for external validation.

This summer I began to lose the joy in the last and longest term creative endeavor. For many months I had been working really hard to make a game design meet with what a company wanted and then had them hard pass. The disappointment struck a deep nerve. No so much that they didn't want the game, I liked earlier versions much better myself, it was that the joy of creating and the joy of making a space for people to have fun in had become work. I was trying to make money, and to some degree justify all the time and energy I had put into the design as well as the countless others who had supported me along the way.

Designing for pleasure, creating for the sheer joy of making something and seeing people enjoy it had vanished. I stopped game design immediately. I had invested years in honing a set of skills, learning a new language, as well as forming many relationships and woke up to feel like a fake.

Something about being boldly creative in secret calls to me again. Making for the joy of sending a small peace of what was once only in my head, our into the world, but without a return address.

I had thought about beginning a video blog and talk about board games, or maybe parenting, but I fear the same future would meet that endeavor. Aside from hiding or anonymity I still seek creative expression that is joy filled and critique proof.

 So, take this small letter set upon the waters and read it if you find it and think about what keeps you afloat in uncertain seas of life.