Creative types talk about reading reviews of their work, and how they can’t.
They can’t read the good reviews, because if they believed the good reviews, they’d have to believe the bad ones too.
An article, I think it was from Hotel Concierge, has a line that describes years of my life. I still repeat it, a mantra to fight certain anxieties, certain beliefs.
People live their life following rules they don’t really believe in, then wonder why they don’t feel powerful.
There’s a series of old children’s stories, puppets who wander about their world giving stickers to each other, golden stars to those they like, black dots to those they don’t.
One puppet doesn’t have any stickers. Whether star or dot, they flutter off her to the ground.
This is because she knows the kindly old carpenter who made them, and because she knows the stickers are only a game, whatever shape they are. They don’t matter.
If, by Rudyard Kipling, is a beautiful poem, chock full of good advice.
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you…
And, of course, Nietzsche talked about this, saying that the superior man is not a means to an end, but an end in and of himself.
I think all of them are saying the same thing.
By the way, today there was a crazy lady at work. She had to be escorted out, yelling about being God, the end of the world, and ancient Egypt. It was a real problem, and I was there, and I helped walk her out. It wasn’t till later I realized how shaken up everybody else was. I couldn’t care less. I’d been thinking so much about other people, people I don’t know or care about. Imaginary people having imaginary conversations, that’s what shook me up.
The mind is its own place….
I think Milton said that.
Anyway, it fits nicely here.