When did I get too old to go out and stand in a thunderstorm? Or stomp in puddles? Or lie in the grass?
How did I become so filled with self-doubt that the slightest question of my abilities leaves me wondering if I am somehow misperceiving my capacity to do well - as if I am somehow gravely off in my self-assessment?
Why did I start feeling so scared and worried all the time? About money? About violence? About unexpected and difficult events that smash into expectations and leave little broken pieces in their wake?
What is the balance between other and self? How do we form an identity based not only on our self-perception but also on the feedback we receive from others... to end up somewhere in between in a place approximating truth as best we are able with all our limitations and intricacies?
The trick lately, for me, is to remember who I am striving to become, who I have left behind, and who I already am... and to weave together a strong yet flexible self that is neither rigid nor tenuous in its final shape.
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When I was about 22 or so I had a director I really looked up to. One day, when he was talking about some of the places he worked/didn't work around Massachusetts, he mentioned a nearby regional theater and then added "I used to work there a lot but the new A.D. doesn't like my work." I remember being so impressed by how nonchalant he was about it. This A.D.'s judgment of his talents seemed to have no effect on his own estimation of his abilities. But at the same time, you really got the sense that he didn't hold it against the A.D. either. It really burned into my brain for the first time that there was a self-assured place I could find as an adult that not only left me relatively impervious to negative critiques of my abilities, but that also left me self-assured enough to not feel I have to attack or mentally tear down that critic in order to survive the criticism. Maybe this sort of thing comes easily to some. For me...I haven't really found that place yet but compared to how insecure I was at 22, I'm a veritable Buddha. Anyway, maybe these sorts of things just sort themselves out over time.
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