0425 steady & fear

0425 steady

alright. today is the 3rd day of BISFF and in the first 2 I've seen 17 short films, some of them 20-30 minutes in length, all of them well made, some of them not to my taste, some that blew my fucking mind, most of them have somehow expanded my understanding of cinema, art, sound, storytelling, life, being, etc.

This week is (almost) all about the festival and when I'm not watching amazing things on a large screen with beautiful sound in a big dark room with people who appreciate more or less what I appreciate (I assume), I'm thinking about, internalizing and reflecting on what I've witnessed. This includes what happens at the guest visits (GV) and guiding commentary by the programmers (PG) before and after the screenings. I deliberately prioritize these to the non-GV and PG screenings. 

Then I wake the next morning and make a piece of music and do accompanying visuals. Today I'm alternating between excited inspiration and creative paralysis due to imposter syndrome. 

the mean inner voice 

What right do I have to make this puny ridiculously dumb shit that I do when there are real artists and composers out there who are decades ahead of me in every way imaginable.. I'm watching/listening to things that were made before I was born which surpass my potential lifetime's work. So what's the point? It's embarrassing. Then the self-hatred comes and I'm tempted to close down my website and delete every piece of music I've ever made.

But I every time I feel like a fraud, it's like waking from a dream and realizing that I'm nothing. But instead of oblivion, I find a new way to convince myself that it's okay that I do this.

reasons to move forward

I somehow snap out of it and keep going. This happens to me every once in a while and I don't know why I keep at it. Sheer chutzpa? Ignorant bull-headedness? Habit? Self-deception? Most of the time I believe that I am a composer and have every right to do music, just like everyone has the right to be creative and focus on what they like to focus on. This I know is true. It has to be enough.

I think of the artist friends whom I respect who seem to think I know what I'm doing, so I'd rather take their word for it and hope they're not just being nice to me because they're nice people and that's what nice people do.

Or then there's the "so what" thing.. It's my life and if I want to do these things with my time, then I should at least try, why should the superiority of others past and present stop me from doing art? I accept not being the best at anything. I can and should do what pleases me as long as it doesn't harm anyone.. it's just music after all. 

Art doesn't work in a vacuum where only the superlative geniuses get to practice it. They're not gods. We are people and everyone potentially has something (however small) to contribute to the pool of humanity's imagination.

This is only a fraction of what I think about during these moments of doubt.

Today's piece was difficult to do because I was fighting through a pretty severe bout of self-skepticism. The result kind of cheered me up, so I'll get over it as I always do.

I'll probably delete this when I've fully recovered, so if you're reading this sentence, thank you.. really.