Wednesday 16 September 2009

Part three) Making peace with insecurity

To end this reflection on the importance of experience, if you’ll permit me I’d like to talk a little about myself for a moment. My attempts at writings for public consumption has been a difficult one for me. Initially I wanted to write about politics but felt massively insecure about everything I did. Every article that made it into my notebook eventually got binned because I felt too stupid to tackle the subject matter or felt it had been said before and said better. It wasn’t until I finished on language I really understood where benefits of having a creative outlet lay. We often get caught up, especially those of you currently being victimised by the university system, with an unhealthy obsession with being judged and graded with everything you produce.

My first article was poorly structured, riddled with grammatical errors and almost certainly has been said before and said better. Yet I got a tremendous buzz from writing it for several reasons. Firstly I wrestled and gained a greater understanding of a topic I knew little about, and also got people I know talking about a topic that was important to me. The real pleasure in being creative doesn’t come from what you produce but what changes and develops within yourself when you create it. Insecurity may seem like the obstacle but perhaps striving for security is what led me to bin those articles. Eve Ensler the worlds foremost activist in woman's rights has a very interesting take on insecurity.

“When security is paramount you can’t travel very far or venture too far outside a certain circle. You can’t allow too many conflicting ideas into your mind at one time, as they might confuse you or challenge you. You can’t open yourself to new experiences, new people, and new ways of doing things. They might take you off course.”

I’ve learned that anything worth doing will make me feel insecure, maybe the quest now is to keep writing while embracing insecurity. I never thought writing a simple article on language would make me re-evaluate my relationship with insecurity but here we are in article two talking about it. I now think if complete security was the greatest objective in our lives it would kill all artistic expression as we know it. So I think my experience of insecurity might actually be one worth relating to you. Don’t let doubt cripple your ability to create a record of your experience. Don’t let security be the goal in your life.

The time for this reflection is at its end, but I hope I’ve conveyed that a degree of personal examination will arm us for the uncertain times ahead. That the tools for allowing us to do this with finesse surrounds us in the form of art and that art is accessible to all people of all tastes. Finally I hope my personal experience will help inspire you to create, so that like me you can finally make peace with insecurity.

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