Dear Shy Creative,
You are everywhere. In the free SoundCloud tracks, in the sidewalk art, in the anonymous poems and un-credited pictures, you pass by us quietly. You send your ideas out into the Big World on their own, and watch as they catch the eye of the passerby. But, for every creation you put out there, there are dozens that only exist in your notebooks, on your hard drives, in drafts and archives.Even more that never make it past a nagging thought in the back of your mind.
Everywhere you go, your mind is absorbing, changing and creating.
So why is it so hard to get your mind to talk to your hands?
What stops you from writing? From picking up your instrument? From submitting that poem? From taking that microphone? From touching your brush to that canvas?
Maybe it's fear. Fear of the repeated failures. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of your friends. Fear of the strangers. Fear of the Facebook comments. Fear of the opinions of people whose opinions you never even realized mattered to you. Fear of finding out you aren't good at it. Fear of discovering something you have always claimed to love isn't your thing after all. Fear of getting in too deep. Fear of missing your calling. Fear of fear of fear.
If you see yourself in any (or all) of those fears, take heart! So do I. So do so many of us Creatives.
If every one of the skills I've learned and odd hobbies I've dabbled in added a title to my name, I'd have quite the list: pianist, reader, singer, baker, crocheter, painter, knitter, speaker, violist, archer, photographer, typewriter restorer, postcard collector, hiker, birdwatcher, astronomer, ham radio operator, weather spotter, writer. I am all of these things at intervals; some longer than others. Some more intensely than others. We all have our "list." Our things we were, or want to be, or could have been, or are but — what do we say instead? "I take pictures for fun." I'm not a photographer, though. I don't use a real camera. "I like to write poems." I'm not a poet. W. B. Yeats and Longfellow and Ginsburg and Frost are poets, man. "I play the piano." What if they ask me to play something?! I'm not, like, a pianist pianist. On and on and on we go, afraid of being an impostor. Afraid of them finding out.
Finding out what? That you can make music with your fingers? That you can arrange words to become feelings? That you can capture the world around you?
Take that voice in the back of your head that says "Yeah, but you don't actually do that well enough to..." and punch it in its troll-y face. Insecurity and the fear of them choke out the Makers. It took from fifth grade, when I started writing, to my seventh semester in college to read a poem of my own in front of people. The positive response was overwhelming; the few moments of fear were worth the lightheaded happiness that followed. The "safety" of the defensiveness I used to protect myself from those fears was nothing compared to the relief and joy of letting myself be myself. Beth, the girl who writes poems. Beth, the poet.
Who are you?
The world needs us, Makers. The world needs poets and painters and musicians, writers and readers and singers, composers and artists and dancers, speakers and planners and dreamers. In a society driven to tear down, we need hands to gather together, build up and spread out color, light and music.
From one reluctant, easily discouraged and often insecure creative to another: Stop it. Tell me to stop it. I'll tell you to stop it, and I'll cheer you on.
Stop deleting. Stop erasing. Stop hoarding. Stop refusing. Stop hiding.
Start creating. Start sharing.
Start being you, the creator.
Together?
— Your Fellow Maker
