It Keeps Coming Back to That Mirror
I’ve been enjoying getting connected on Twitter the last couple days. I started out just using it to keep my facebook status updated, but I found myself wanting to Tweet more than Facebook would allow updates. I also found myself wanting to write things that weren’t really what Facebook status updates were meant to be. But with a little work, I have a few people following my Tweet-life so disconnected the two.
But what I find interesting in this process is how taking the risk to write even those less than 140 character updates intersects with some new freedom to write (as my output on this blog demonstrates). As I think about this “coincidence” my mind returns to the important question of self-image: what do I see when I look in the mirror?
One of the treats of Twitter today is the inside scoop on Wil Wheaton’s latest book, Sunken Treasure being released as a downloadable file. I just started reading it (I actually am supposed to be doing something else at the moment, but am enjoying a “Creative Distraction”). In the first chapter he writes about his struggle with continuing to see himself as an actor when it wasn’t working that well for him anymore and the emerging image as a writer. While he still acts, he is enjoying his life more when he writes.
This overlaps well with my own ongoing adventure with my mirror. I would love to be a writer and utilize this venue as a playground as I try to find my own voice. Yet, the voice of the Inner Critic still weighs in with the proposition that there is little about my life or ideas that would interest anyone else. So why bother.
However, the fallout from following that Critic voice go far beyond any possible future (or not) with writing. It affects my relationships in my family and church. It affects my voice in preaching and teaching. It affects me when I think about getting my camera out again or when I think about diving into that computer programming project I have been dabbling with for years. The voice can squash even entertaining ideas let alone doing anything with them.
So, my strategy to realign the voice of the Critic is to be quick and to persevere. I’ve been reading an older book by Janet Hagberg: Wrestling With Your Angels: A Spiritual Journey to Great Writing. In it she counsels that we befriend our Critic and use that voice later in the writing process. So, my blog posts are “raw.” (As if you can’t tell) Very little editing happens, I just sit down and write, then when I get to a stopping point I hit Publish. Same thing with my Tweets. A short sentence that expresses an idea, then off it goes.
In order to do that, though I have to address the question of the Mirror: Who do you think you are that anyone else might be interested in your thoughts and activities? My answer has to be a simple, “I am me, that’s all, no more and no less.” I don’t really know if people find any of this interesting, but it is all I have and that is good enough.
