Inktober time

I'm coming out of the closet: I'm a people pleaser. It was a vital personal safety mechanism in my youth but I've driven this "bus" far too long. What's this comment got to do with Inktober? Everything. Hear me out.

People Pleasing

There's really nothing wrong with pleasing other people until it becomes pathological. That's what happened to me. Over the course of my life I have poured a lot of energy into other people and very little into myself. This became a recipe for burnout, self-doubt, isolation, and depression.

The Perfection Standard

As a people pleaser I strove to meet a perfection standard. Again, nothing wrong with striving for excellence until it becomes pathological. I went to the place of pathology. Though I struggled for perfection, I had no actual defined standard for it. This resulted in a lot of self-judgment for not being good enough when really I had no idea what "enough" was! I would continue to perfect, try, over-engineer, until I was thoroughly exhausted and yet still convinced that whatever I was doing was inadequate. My efforts always depressed me and even if they were considered good/good enough/maybe-even-great by others, I would hide my work, ashamed of anything I did.

The Results

The immediate fallout

I'd get excited about working on something - maybe photography, maybe a sewing project, maybe sketching, occasionally painting - but that would tank quickly when I got into the task because the outcome didn't match the initial image in my head. If I couldn't reproduce my mental image rather rapidly and easily I would give up entirely.

I didn't give up because it was hard. I've done plenty of very hard things in my life, so I know I'm capable of doing difficult things and finishing tasks. I gave up because of the intense Cat 5 hurricane of simultaneous anxiety and depression raging through my head and body which then "tsunami'd" right over the top of any project I was working on. Once drowned in this sea of hopeless, undefined perfectionism, the creative project was then lost.

The long term outcome

Though the immediate fallout was uncomfortable, maybe the worst part was that once the storm started it stayed with me for many months. I would lose any momentum and skills I was cultivating. The whispers of "you can't ever do anything right" would multiply, get stronger and gaining momentum until all creativity was sucked into the vortex and I would be adrift, unable to find direction. This can last for months. . . sometimes years.

And yeah, full disclosure, that's why I haven't posted here for a looooooong time.

Avoiding Traps

I used to joke about my "$500 rolling addictions," noting that I would shift between bicycling, kayaking, art, gardening, guitar, woodworking, and photography, getting intensely into one of them until I burned out and moved to another.

Recognizing what's happening

I finally realized in the last year what was really happening. I was crashing into my undefined perfection standard and the anxiety of being unable to meet it, then collapsing into self-depreciation and not-good-enough, depression, and shame. I would then abandon what I loved and move to another thing I would then love-to-near-death. I would cycle from one thing to the next until I would exhaust my supply of that-which-gave-me-joy and lapse into a 5 month period of bleak nothing.

Once recognized, I began to unpack what was happening. I found the undefined and unattainable perfection standard that was written into my soul like part of the base operating system. When I realized it was there it lost a lot of its' power. It's not gone, mind you. I'd need a new version of my iOS for that! But at least I can see it powering up and can manually shut it down now.

No hashtags!

Another way I've found not to burn myself into ash with my enjoyable pursuits is to do the challenges. . . like Inktober. . . but maybe keep them to myself for a while. This is why you won't see me posting on Instagram or Facebook. You'll just see my challenge work here. If you find it, you find it. Maybe you'll enjoy it, maybe you won't. But I have no intention of jumping up and down in front of you waving a hashtag.

Let it have a life

Art, like many things, often starts with a vision of some kind - an image you want to draw/sketch/paint, a photo you want to capture, a design you want to build, a dress you want to make, a video you want to shoot, etc. An important thing art has taught me is that projects, once started, often take on a life of their own, independent from your initial vision. You have a choice: fight that independence and bully the project in the direction you want to go or work with that spirit and see what you can create together.

Speaking for myself? The results are better in a partnership sitch.

Loosening up

Literally. A physically tight grip on a pen or pencil or paintbrush will give you results, but they are stiff and rather stilted results. A grip that gives you control, but is still loose yields more fluid lines that don't look so forced and the piece overall feels light and natural.

Maybe you noticed this too. It was definitely true for kayaking and bicycling. When my grip on the kayak paddle or handle grips was easy and only as tight as I needed it to be to maintain control I found I could go further, enjoyed myself more, and my movements were more sure.

Alright. That's enough about my process. See you in a couple of weeks with my Inktober 2022 work.

-- Cat