Fear

In last week's post, I talked about all the uncertainty in my life right now, and how my career as a composer has shown me how to master that uncertainty.  This week, however, is all about fear.

Fear is a big thing.  Fears, like dogs, come in many breeds and varieties, each one distinct and different ... and all of them dangerous.

Fear of the Future.  Fear of the Unknown.  Fear of Looking Foolish.  Fear of Failure.  Fear of Success.  Fear of Commitment.  These are just a couple of the different breeds of fear we each face in our lives.  And for a creative, each of these is a very real part of our creative work and creative lives.

Fear of the Future -- Let's face it, friends: the future is a big blank, and quite literally anything can happen (though, thankfully, it usually doesn't).  For the creative, we worry what our next creation will be, when we'll have time to work on it, if that big project at work or that family reunion or that business trip will keep us from getting our creative work done.  We worry that when we sit down to create, we'll have nothing to say and won't remember how to do what we do.

Fear of the Unknown -- When we do sit down to create, we have an empty nothing staring back at us, and as we stare at it, we can see through to the millions of possible things that can come from what we're about to do, many of which we know nothing about.  We fear not knowing how the work will go, when we'll get to work again, how long the project will take, or who we'll have to interact with to get the project through to completion.

Fear of Looking Foolish -- And so we create our work, and most of us ultimately share it with someone.  What if they don't like it?  What if they think it's the biggest piece of junk they've ever seen/read/heard?  What if it's so bad they actually laugh at it?  What if we say something stupid, or paint something childishly, or put in a nonsensical-sounding chord? 

Fear of Failure -- Worse still, what if they're not the only ones who think that?  What if the piece falls flat on its face everywhere it goes?  What if we send it to a dozen publishers and they all reject it?  What if we give it to a group to play and they turn their noses up at it?  What if we show our book or our painting to some People In The Know and they rip it to figurative (or literal) shreds?

Fear of Success -- Even worse than that, what if they like the piece, and then they expect us to be able to do that same thing again?  What if it all goes so well that they start to make demands of us and our time, start to want so many things from us and of us that we don't have the time we want or need for other things?  Yes, the bigger they are, the harder they fall, but for those of us who don't change sizes, the harder falls come from bigger heights.  With every success, we have that much farther to fall should one of our other fears come to pass.

Fear of Commitment -- After enough time doing this, we start to realize we're on this path, and probably for the long haul.  But what if we don't want to stay on this path?  What if we want to explore other paths, other arts, other disciplines, or even abandon our art altogether?  We fear we're setting ourselves up for a lifetime of doing this, of meeting other people's expectations, and of living on fear nonstop.


Sound familiar?  Most of us have felt these at one point or another (and for some of us, more frequently than that) in our lives.  Now, here's the exercise:

Think back to a time you had a lot of fear about something -- it can be one of these fears, or more than one of these fears (better), or even a fear that isn't listed here.  Try to remember how the fear felt, what you worried would happen.  Then, ask yourself if what you feared came to pass.

Repeat this exercise until you start to see a pattern.  It shouldn't take very long, because for most of us, our fears never come to pass, or if they do come to pass, they are so inconsequential that we don't remember them until some creativity blogger asks us to drag them up from the depths.

But fear is a powerful enemy, and while he's staring at you, he seems unbeatable, invincible ... and completely, totally right.  He's not.  In fact, Fear is scared that you'll realize he's a fraud.  Yes, my friends: fear suffers from himself.

There's a book out there that, sadly, I've not read, but I've heard some great reviews about it, and it's title is, I think, the perfect solution here:  Feel the Fear ... And Do It Anyway.  We never get rid of fear, and we never defeat it -- we only learn to tolerate and ignore it.  Press on despite the fear, knowing that it is not the master.  Press on, knowing that most of your fears will never come to pass.  Press on ... and create something wonderful.