“My father always said, ‘If you’re not here to win… get the hell outta Kuwait.'”
– Aubrey Posen
Over the past few days, I’ve been reading back over my posts on this blog. There aren’t many, but there are enough. Enough to make me cringe.
Back when I wrote those things, I was a different person from who I am now. It isn’t that I necessarily disagree with what I wrote, or I wouldn’t stand by it, it’s just that I don’t think I would write about those things the same way anymore. Now, I would try to include more nuance. (I hope.)
Ah, Nuance. The ever-evasive woman of my dreams. The ability to introduce nuance in writing while still being clear and concise is extremely difficult. It takes a lot of practice to get to that level of mastery. I suppose recently I have been noticing that my writing is not quite as eloquent as I wish it to be. Especially on this blog. I have written many academic papers and fictional stories that have a different set of criteria for evaluating their excellence – and maybe I can write well to those criteria. But when it comes to this style of personal narrative, I am beginning to understand that it is much more challenging than it looks.
This is a difficult notion for me to stomach because I have always prided myself on being a good writer. It is something I have put a lot of work into all throughout my K-12 education, and it gave me a lot of pleasure. But the truth is, lately, I haven’t been putting in as much effort into this skill. My school assignments have been more about conveying complex ideas coherently and getting past my own anxiety enough to finish something and turn it in, than about style and flow. And that’s fine. That’s the way it needed to be.
But now that I’m showing interest in improving my writing again, I’m confronted with the gap between my current abilities and the skill level I wish to be at. What I’ve realized is this: it’s much more courageous and noble to show up every day and try than it is to only do something once you’re already good at it.
This revelation was brought on by a dance performance I watched recently. It was the girl’s first solo recital, and she had chosen some really difficult pieces, which she completed and did well. It was obvious that she didn’t have the finesse and artistry of a seasoned professional, though. That might sound like a ridiculously obvious thing to say, because who expects someone to dance like a professional after their first solo performance? The thing is that some kids do have that perfection and professionalism, even in their first performance. What I’ve seen happen each year is that all the other children end up comparing themselves to those one or two people who manage to stand out. The sixteen-year-old version of me who completed her own solo dance recital was crushed by same comparison. I expected myself to be perfect and flawless, especially after spending that much time working on that goal. But in retrospect, I realized that my hard work did show through. I wasn’t perfect, just like this dancer that I saw recently. But I did something difficult! I got up there and completed the dances and just got through something really hard. And as I was watching the girl this past weekend, I realized how much I admired her for being brave enough to do something difficult in front of a group of people, even if she wasn’t perfect at it.
An unkind person may say unkind things about that vulnerable act. But I’m done living my life in fear of what one or two unkind people think of me. It’s time to work on the things that I want to work on, even if I am bad at them. I’m not going to refuse to dance in front of people or refuse to post my reflections on this blog just because they’re not perfect. That’s what the fearful version of me would do. Instead, I’d rather be the person who shows up everyday and tries. I’ll probably make a lot of mistakes, but who cares? The people who care enough to shit on me inherently have bigger problems than me if they are so unhappy that they spend their time fixating on some random person on the internet. Those people deserve my empathy, but not my freedom, self-respect, or peace of mind. So I won’t hand those things over to them or anybody else.
I’ll just do my own thing and eventually, I’ll get better at it! That’s just the way the world works. And in the meantime, I’m going to enjoy myself – along with my freedom, self-respect, and peace of mind.
Coloring The Void 