My Recent Revelations Revealed

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January 27, 2013 by Zarba Productions

This week is all about self acceptance for me. Like most people in the creative field, we have momentary feelings of SUCK. What I mean by this is there are times where you look at what your peers are doing and feel as though you are the worst thing to ever happen to the creative field and you should just stop trying to produce creative work. Although totally normal, these feelings are the enemy. These feelings must be overcome. They are the bane of all creativity. The worst part is that these are self-inflicted feelings. These feelings do not typically come from others telling you that you suck. It’s all in your head. But your mind can be the most powerful critic and can trick you into thinking you’re an utter failure.

So how do you beat it? If you’ve got an indefinite answer to this, please share with me because I’m still working it out as I go. My current process is to let myself feel it. I let myself absorb the feeling just long enough to satisfy whatever self-pity I need in order to get over it. I believe that all feelings should be given attention. If you push those feelings away and always seek those happy feelings, you’re bound to crack at some point. If you’re at all like me, too much pushing away can lead to fewer, yet way bigger emotional outbursts. I’ve come to learn to just let myself feel  whatever it is I need to feel at that moment in time. I’m not psychologist, but I do know myself well enough to deem this process helpful.

So this week, my sucky feelings spawned from a particular assignment that I was not particularly proud of.. I knew I wasn’t thrilled with my images before we had a class critique.. But after class, I was feeling really down. I reflected a lot on why some of my images turn out how I plan and others don’t. I came to several realizations about myself that day. One of which being that I need to stop trying to please other people with my work. I do want people to be pleased with what I do, but I’ve discovered that my best work comes from something I truly want to shoot. And ultimately, my hope is that when I shoot from my heart, it will shine through the work and, consequently, viewers will respond to it. No one is going to care about something that the creator themselves don’t care about. It’s time to make something meaningful. I need more meaning in this life. I need to know that I’m doing something other than making pretty things.

That being said, we have 2 major assignments this quarter. Until this point, I have been trying to split my efforts evenly between them. But another discovery I had this week is that I truly care about one more than the other. A lot more. So I decided I need to split my efforts 70% / 30%. I mean, why do two things half heartedly when you can do one thing you actually like whole heartedly?

So there it is. My recent revelations revealed. Time to keep on truckin.

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