Fair Warning: This may be a little too far on the ‘Navel Gazing’ end of the spectrum. Proceed at your own peril.

I’ve been thinking about fear. I’ve been letting fear make my decisions for me. Instead of pushing past any fear, I’ve been allowing it to push me back. I find my relationship with fear interesting/confusing. If you judge me for making a mistake, I have a complete ‘up yours’ attitude. At the same time, I absolutely hate making mistakes. I am afraid of doing things wrong. It is the being wrong that gets me.

So new challenge: I need to get comfortable with doing things badly/wrong. One thing I intended to start about five years ago but didn’t because of a pain flare (I have a pain disorder, we may get into more of that later, or not) is a ‘Bad Art Night’. As artists, we get so focused on creating what we envision, we have the habit of not allowing ourselves to experiment and take the risk of just creating something awful. When we start out with the intention of creating bad art, then we create a sense that doing something wrong is okay, and of course, it is.

Also, I have refrained from learning certain cooking techniques because I might do them badly. Whipping egg whites and cream (separately, of course) comes to mind. So, for another project I’m working on I’m going to make videos of myself taking whatever technique I’m trying to the point of failure.

Now, both of these plans are, well, planned failures. Not really the same as just trying something new and taking the risk of doing badly at it, but for me, this is a case of ‘you have to start somewhere’. I choose here.