Why is there this crippling sense of inadequacy?
As one looks around, it seems that everyone else has such confidence, such certainty, such skill in achieving whatever they set out to do. It seems that others can always do it better, whatever it might be. One's own efforts seem paltry by comparison. It seems that one is doomed to failure no matter how hard his efforts, or, if not failure, at least to falling short, not merely of perfection, but falling short of what anyone else might accomplish.
Crippling I described it and truly it is. If one listens to the voice of despair, his confidence evaporates like dew beneath the burning summer sun. His voice dies in his throat. He dares not reach out to others, thinking he could never mean anything to them. So it is that he sinks into the dark hole of his own fear, hiding from terrors made by his own imagination. He dares not strive and his creative energy withers.
Someone working in film whose name I cannot recall at present once spoke of how one can create only if he is free. There is much truth to that. It is freedom that gives boundless horizons to the artist to explore, freedom that opens his mind to the possibilities in the world about him, freedom that stirs in his heart the wonder that ponders how things might be if they were other than they are.
Thus, for an artist, few things could be worse than this crippling sense of inadequacy. It not only withers anything he strives to bring to birth through his work, but also turns to dust whatever he might have dared to accomplish, annihilating any desire to reach for the sublime, hindering any bold leaps of faith that constitute the risks an artist takes when he exposes himself through his work. For, if he himself is inadequate, how could he dare to be presumptuous enough to put himself into his work? How could he believe that others could be moved through the beauty that dwells within him?
Do all experience this phenomenon of inadequacy? Perhaps it is only that they know how to handle it better—how to accept their own weakness and brokenness and reach beyond it—how to put on a bold face that defies such inner turmoil.
Or is it only the sensitive soul that finds itself crippled by this feeling of being crushed beneath the weight of its own brokenness? Is it only he who seeks a cloak of invisibility lest others should see his inadequacy?
Perhaps someday I shall better understand what I now ponder in uncertainty. Until then, I hope to have the courage to delve deeper in this mystery that is life in this world.
I conclude with words from Shakespeare expressing the essence of my question:
Thus, for an artist, few things could be worse than this crippling sense of inadequacy. It not only withers anything he strives to bring to birth through his work, but also turns to dust whatever he might have dared to accomplish, annihilating any desire to reach for the sublime, hindering any bold leaps of faith that constitute the risks an artist takes when he exposes himself through his work. For, if he himself is inadequate, how could he dare to be presumptuous enough to put himself into his work? How could he believe that others could be moved through the beauty that dwells within him?
Do all experience this phenomenon of inadequacy? Perhaps it is only that they know how to handle it better—how to accept their own weakness and brokenness and reach beyond it—how to put on a bold face that defies such inner turmoil.
Or is it only the sensitive soul that finds itself crippled by this feeling of being crushed beneath the weight of its own brokenness? Is it only he who seeks a cloak of invisibility lest others should see his inadequacy?
Perhaps someday I shall better understand what I now ponder in uncertainty. Until then, I hope to have the courage to delve deeper in this mystery that is life in this world.
I conclude with words from Shakespeare expressing the essence of my question:
"Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt."
-Measure for Measure
