Self-Doubting - Little Singing Boy
Every morning, Jeff shares a thought, a page from a book, reflections, podcast excerpts, or anything else that might define our personal and collective journey in a band group chat named: “Alex Henry Foster – Studio – Spring 2024”. It’s a way for us to remain aligned with the greater perspective of what we are doing but also to keep on shaping ourselves as well. It’s usually pretty deep while being somehow simple for everyone to muse about. Today’s passage was from the iconic producer Rick Rubin’s thoughts on creative self-doubt, taken from his incredible book ‘The Creative Act: A Way of Being’.
It was particularly appealing to me as the more I dig down into self-introspection, the more I realize just how heavy the burden of constant success and over-performance has been on me since a very young age. Not only am I a single child, but I’ve also been very gifted with a high academic pre-disposition. So, even though I grew up in an impoverished socioeconomic environment, my parents raised me in a very rich cultural, conversational, and human-driven type of household. And as much as they kept on reminding me that I could do whatever I wanted as long as I was happy, I think it morphed into high pressure as I progressed from being in the school’s top 10 of best general grades, all the way to being offered to skip university levels. If it should have been an amazing advantage for me, it turned into a constant fear of failing and disappointing those who believed in me. Therefore, I’m often paralyzed or stunted for a while when it comes to starting a new project, just like I’ve been during Mikko’s first week. It wasn’t too much of an advantage to be gifted when I “froze” interiorly out of the fright of collapsing, and I tanked. Hopefully, once that initial phase of “it’s too much pressure for me to handle” vanishes through the rationality of my personal capacities and collective support, only then I fly and reach a further / or different place than I originally believed I would be able to even make one foot into such a direction. Each successive step builds me back up, not only for the particular endeavor I might be working on but for all the upcoming ones. From glory to glory…
Even Mikko intervened once, as I was in clear panic mode in the studio, and he mentioned something like this:
“You know Alex, you need to stop approaching things while trying for everything to be perfect all the time, art is about trying… It’s about letting go and letting your unconsciousness guide you somewhere your brain didn’t even know existed. It’s through all the bad ideas that a stunning one will emerge. You are so hard on yourself… Relax, you are great. Let’s have fun… we’ll laugh when it sucks and we’ll cry when it’s deeply moving.”
Yes, I can hear you saying: “Ain’t that what you are always writing about Alex? About “abandonment”, “unconsciousness”, “instinct” and all of that…?” YES… YES… YES… I never said it was easy though, right? 😉 There’s this info to add to the whole thing now.
I have to embrace my limitations now, and they might not even be limitations at all. I just don’t know yet. And YES, it freaks me out not to know. That’s also a dark side of usually understanding conceptual and abstract elements. When you don’t comprehend something, you are left exposed, fragile, and vulnerable, which is the entire point Rick and Mikko are talking about. And my “new” normal is the best opportunity to discover that, but mainly to dwell in that profound world of the total unknown. That’s where I am in my life, at a pivotal moment of my existence. The 2 choices that seem to be in front of me now are:
1) Let’s take a leap of faith in the invisible or…
2) Trying to find my way back to what I figured I was before.
Only one of the two leads further. The other option leads nowhere and will eat my spirit piece by piece. So until I find an alternative…. “invisible” here I come! (I wonder if there is any roadmap available for that “invisible” place. Just asking, just asking… 😉
“You know Alex, you need to stop approaching things while trying for everything to be perfect all the time, art is about trying… It’s about letting go and letting your unconsciousness guide you somewhere your brain didn’t even know existed. It’s through all the bad ideas that a stunning one will emerge. You are so hard on yourself… Relax, you are great. Let’s have fun… we’ll laugh when it sucks and we’ll cry when it’s deeply moving.”
Yes, I can hear you saying: “Ain’t that what you are always writing about Alex? About “abandonment”, “unconsciousness”, “instinct” and all of that…?” YES… YES… YES… I never said it was easy though, right? 😉 There’s this info to add to the whole thing now.
I have to embrace my limitations now, and they might not even be limitations at all. I just don’t know yet. And YES, it freaks me out not to know. That’s also a dark side of usually understanding conceptual and abstract elements. When you don’t comprehend something, you are left exposed, fragile, and vulnerable, which is the entire point Rick and Mikko are talking about. And my “new” normal is the best opportunity to discover that, but mainly to dwell in that profound world of the total unknown. That’s where I am in my life, at a pivotal moment of my existence. The 2 choices that seem to be in front of me now are:
1) Let’s take a leap of faith in the invisible or…
2) Trying to find my way back to what I figured I was before.
Only one of the two leads further. The other option leads nowhere and will eat my spirit piece by piece. So until I find an alternative…. “invisible” here I come! (I wonder if there is any roadmap available for that “invisible” place. Just asking, just asking… 😉
