Self-challenge: Habituate to Praise
Let me start by saying outright that I don't expect or ask you all to read this. The purpose of this post isn't to get attention from the community, but to make a challenge to myself in a way that I can't ignore.



I'm both a perfectionist and a procrastinator, as some of you well know. Over the last several months I've had ample time to study myself and ask just why it should be so damned hard for me to create. I know I can do it, I've done it all my life, and I've hardened myself to the fear of display sufficiently to post my works and even take criticism with more or less grace. Why do I still constantly engineer my days so that I run out of time to draw or write, and why do I grab at any flimsy excuse to avoid the very work that I most love to do?

One method to overcome obstacles is to visualize the path you wish to take. I've been working at it and I realized this morning that I can barely imagine what being a successful artist feels like. Working from home, being adept with my tools, discussing a client's needs, that's all the easy part. But looking down at a finished work with satisfaction, displaying it naturally instead of as an act of defiance, and accepting the word of others that it's not just good but excellent... it's hard even to describe. I can imagine being a sapient aquatic torpedo that navigates by pressure waves and speaks in patterns of light, but I have trouble imagining what it's like to hear praise and believe it. Anticipating praise feels very much like waiting for a lancet's stab, and receiving it feels like being pushed to the edge of a cliff, complete with scrabbling claws and desperation.

I admit that I'm rather offended at myself for clinging to a maladaptive response so strongly. I've read enough about the damage done by victimhood status, and it seems unfair that I should still be crippled by my past while people who suffered much worse abuse than I did survived with nothing but memories. Be that as it may, every living thing with two neurons to rub together is capable of associating warning cues with trauma on a reflex level. Suffice to say that I learned very well to associate both praise and success with punishment. Critique hurts, yes, sometimes very deeply, but praise is worse because there's no counterattack, nothing to fix that will stop it returning, and it'll only get more intense with time. No wonder I've learned the only safe path is never to finish anything.

If a thing can be learned, it can be un-learned. By experimenting and making mistakes, you not only learn to improve your technique, but to improve your acceptance of mistakes. I have all the practice I need in brainstorming concepts and starting a piece of work with enthusiasm and hope. Now it just remains to train myself in willingly finishing that work, presenting it to your consideration as an equal in rights if not in skill, and looking upon the positive comments as calmly and rationally as I do the critical ones. I'm able to accept thanks, most of the time anyway, so my challenge is to become habituated to praise.

I join communities, I'm active for a while, I make some friends, and then I find reasons to sneak away and protect myself from their eager attention. So I'm posting this message solely to ensure that there exists no haunt where I can run away from this challenge. I'm not asking for sympathy or recognition, though no doubt some of you will respond and I'll accept your words in the spirit they're given. I've hidden this fear from myself for most of my life, and I see no reason to make its continued concealment easy.