Sometimes what comes out of my mouth surprises me. And I realize I understand more about myself than I think.
The other night I was talking to a fellow songwriter about a critique she received on one of her songs. She told me she’s not happy with what they said, so I tried to think of something comforting to say. And out of my mouth comes something along the lines of…
“Listening to critiques is the single worst thing that ever happened to my songwriting. I joined one of those services that critiques your songs and tries to place things for you. It killed me. I didn’t have enough confidence in my own point of view. And once the judge and jury entered the creative process, I lost my perspective. The single most important element to anything creative. Unique perspective. It took me a long time to bounce back from that. I had things to learn, but i’m in a place now where I can’t listen too much anymore. It has to be pure. ”
Trying to make things “good” took the fun out because i got so caught up in the craft, I lost the magic. That euphoric feeling of communicating through art something that is so true and real that no other form of communication is effective. Creativity is too pure a place for judgement. Truth can’t live there. And in the end, without truth, it doesn’t matter how crafted it is. It’s nothing.
My doctor told me recently that our conscious minds have 2X,000 thoughts per minute. Our subconscious minds have 4XX,000 thoughts per minute. The subconscious records everything. My subconscious obviously understood this and has made corrections to my behavior, but my conscious mind wasn’t aware of it yet.
How is it that I live with myself 24 hours a day for years now and understand so little about what i’m doing? I guess that’s what keeps life so spicy.
