This blog has been an interesting exercise. On one hand, it has been the catalyst for my anxieties. On the other, it has forced me to a produce content consistently and document my thoughts.
Playing to concerns is not knowing the limits. Often not even knowing where to begin on a post, (which is admittedly how and why I started writing this one) let alone when to end posts. But I start, often hoping desperately to latch onto a stream of coherent thoughts. But that is a part of it all, actually starting is the hardest step and definitely the most fruitful.
My partner tells me I overthink and overedit. That I have a hard time stopping until I either lose hope, cede control or in rare cases when I am actually happy with my work. Because of my skewed sense of scope, it leads me to fixate on unreasonable metrics of quality and quantity that are too vague and out of reach due to constraints that are not always related to matters of skill, mastery or understanding. Mostly, matters of time and health.
But something that I have noticed over this semester is I have become more confident in showing others, in and out of the course, my work before it is complete. Real voices giving me feedback positive, negative, critical, or shallow have still at times given me an idea, a call to action or just something to do that is more defined than my chaotic unachievable objectives. Plus, due to this process, I have at times begun to see projects in the context of how they began and developed over time.
I am glad that it has put me in a position where I have to act. At least there is more of a chance of me stumbling upon a tangent that gets me thinking and more likely to motivate me to act. On top of that, I can actually see growth – knowing how things were just a few months makes me hopeful for the future.
As a wise old shoe once said, “Just do it.” √
