Recently I had to make a painful decision and remove myself from a toxic situation. Without going into too revealing a set of details, I will say it concerned a working group of individuals and one in particular who was jeopardizing the forward motion of the group in pursuit of its raison d'etre.
The experience reminded me of a simple and essential truth of pursuing a life as an artist.
The individual in question--I'll call her Joan--seemed to be determine to undermine the cohesion of the group as well as the confidence of its key players. This had been something I'd been worrying about for months but it finally came to a head for me when I stopped second-guessing my intuition and allowed myself to sit quietly with some questions and feel where my gut led me rather than searching for possible reasons why I might be mistaken.
She told one member that since the start of his participation several years earlier, she'd never once seen him to be bringing anything truly meaningful to his efforts. Essentially accusing someone she sees only occasionally and does not know well of phoning it in for years.
She told me she did not want to hear my thoughts on a certain question raised because I was "hopelessly self-unaware."
Life is hard enough battling out with our own self-imposed inner voices telling us to stop trying, stop believing, to accept defeat. When this kind of message comes at you from the outside world, you have a choice. You can give the doubters and haters power over your next steps or you can turn around and find another way.
Making art is hard because applause doesn't show up until the hard work is complete. Find your own inner applause and turn up the volume high enough to drown out the noise of your detractors.
