I was once told that writers have the most fragile egos of any people in the world.
I was hurt.
But even I have to admit, when you've nurtured the roots of your work and picked the flower from your own body, it's hard to watch the petals wilt in the shade. When the words blossom in your head and twist down your hand, letting them drip from your fingertips takes more vulnerability than the blank page staring up at you wants to admit.
And when that blank sheet is finally colored with your words, handing it over to the world -- a world that could tear it into shreds as easily as it could let it slip, unnoticed, under a car -- well, it's hard.
And we all feel it.
This hesitation is something any artist can understand; when you give a piece of yourself to each moment of creativity, the possible futility of your effort can be overwhelming.
But, why?
I think this feeling comes from a pressure to be a creative "genius" as justifiable compensation for not pursuing a more socially acceptable professional career. It's this guilt we have for not being lawyers or doctors or regional managers: a pressure that if we are gonna be "artists" well, then, we better be the best.
It's a lifetime of being conditioned by plastic sweet smiles and patronizing pats on the shoulder
"As long as you are having fun"
Like you're a child chattering with dreams to go to the moon.
Being left insecure by people who won't tell you they don't believe in you outright, but will passively stand by as if to wait for your failure.
Horror stories of people who never leave their parent's basement, or stay stuck in a cubicle their entire life just waiting for their break.
But it isn't up to you to please them, is it? It's up to you to put out the things in your soul that are dying to be opened. It's up to you to take the seeds scattered in your brain and give them a space to grow, to take each petal and give it away because the burning itch to create is too much to ignore. It isn't up to you to please them.
You don't have to give them a bouquet to justify planting the garden.
