Life out of round

All my life, I've been pulled by two opposing forces.

One of them is the chaos-brain I described in yesterday's post, which I seem to have been born with.  The other is a ferocious attempt to counteract that tendency by controlling the absolute hell out of my surroundings.  I know a lot of this came from the way I was raised; throughout my childhood, nothing I ever did was good enough, and any compliments came along with an appended list (notarized and in triplicate) of all the things I should have done differently and/or could have done better.  

The result is that I do a great deal of overcompensation.  I became fanatically neat, because organizing my physical space was a way of coping with the fact that my brain is like a car with bald tires and no brakes.  My classroom was so organized and clean you could just about eat off the floor (and keep in mind that it was a biology lab).  As a teacher, I strove to make use of every moment we had, and faulted myself whenever things didn't go well or there was an eventuality I hadn't planned for.

I didn't expect perfection from my students, but I did from myself.  And, in some parts of my life, it served me well enough.

The problem is, that approach doesn't work when you apply it to the arts.

I'm not even talking about the "learning curve" issue, here.  Even when I've attained some level of proficiency, I still expect nothing less than perfection, excoriating myself for every scene in a story that didn't come out the way I wanted, every slightly lopsided piece of pottery, every missed note when I play music.

In theory, I'm one hundred percent in agreement with the quote from Ludwig van Beethoven -- "To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable."  Or, more accurately, I believe that for everyone else.  It's much harder to treat myself so forgivingly.

The result has been an overwhelming case of impostor syndrome, coupled with fear of criticism -- which will, in my warped way of looking at things, only confirm what I've thought about myself all along.  I'm at least working on getting my writing out there under the public eye, despite the inherent risks of poor sales and/or bad reviews, but it's been harder in other aspects of my creative life.  I'm still at the stage where I had to have my arm twisted (hard) to induce me to join as a flutist in a contradance band, and it's damn near impossible to get me to play the piano in front of anyone else (including my wife).  But I'm harshest about my own skill when it comes to my artistic work, which is pottery.  I keep very little of what I make, and most of what I do keep are the pieces that are simple and purely functional -- bowls and mugs and the like.  The vast majority of the sculptures and other, more unusual, pieces I make end up given that dreadful label of "not good enough" and are smashed against the concrete wall of the back of our house. 

All along, I had the attitude -- again, directly consonant with my upbringing -- that this is how you improve, that constant self-criticism should act as some kind of impetus to getting better, to ridding your work of those dreaded mistakes, to attaining that fabled ability to create something with which others could not find fault.

It's only been recently that I've realized that this approach is completely antithetical to creativity.

I got to thinking about this after watching an online pottery workshop with the wonderful New Hampshire potter Nick Sevigney, whose pieces are weird and whimsical and unexpected.  A lot of his pottery has a steampunk feeling, a sense of having been put together from a random assemblage of parts.  It was a revelation to watch him piece together cut slabs of clay, not caring if the result was a little uneven or had a rough edge.  In fact, he embraces those seeming imperfections, turning them "from a bug into a feature."

So I decided to see if I could do a few pieces that riffed off of his approach.

I'm most comfortable on the potter's wheel, so I started out throwing three medium-sized white stoneware bowls.  I've gotten pretty good at getting that smooth curve and rounded profile, with a perfectly circular rim, that is what most of us shoot for when creating a bowl.  

Usually, that's where I'd stop.  If it passed my critical assessment -- not lopsided, decent weight, evenly thick walls, nice smooth surface -- I'd keep it.  Otherwise, into the scrap bucket it'd go.  But here... that was only the first step.

One of the techniques Nick does is taking a piece, cutting chunks out of it, adding texture to the chunk, then reattaching it.  You'd think that because you're putting the piece back where it had been, it'd fit perfectly; but the problem is that adding texture (usually using stamps or rollers) stretches and flattens the clay, so inevitably it ends up larger than the hole it came from.  Nick just forces it to fit, warping the piece's profile -- and instead of worrying about that, he often adds some circular marks that make it look like the piece was inexpertly riveted or screwed back on.

He leans into the unevenness hard.  And the result is something magical, like a relic you might find in a demolished nineteenth century mad scientist's laboratory, something stitched together and broken and reassembled upside down and backwards.

So I took my three smooth, undamaged stoneware bowls and gave it a try.

One of the results

The hardest part -- unsurprising, perhaps, given my personality -- was making the first cut.  Even knowing that if I didn't like the result, I have more clay and could always make another plain, boring, but "perfect" bowl, I sat there for some time, knife in hand, as if the Pottery Gods would smite me if I touched that sleek, classic profile.  Slicing and pressing and marring and deforming it felt like deliberately choosing to ruin something "nice."  

But maybe "nice" isn't what we should be shooting for, as creatives.

Maybe the goal should be somewhere out there beyond "nice."  The point, I realized, is not to retread the safe, secure footsteps I've always taken, but to take a deep breath and launch off into the shadowlands.

So I cut a big chunk from the side of the bowl, got out my texturing stamps and rollers, and set to work.

I was half expecting to give up after a few attempts and throw the whole thing into the scrap bucket, but I didn't.  I found I actually kind of liked the result, as different as it is from what I usually make.  And what surprised me even more was that once I got into it, it was...

... fun.

I've never been much good at "having fun."  In general, I give new meaning to the phrase "tightly wound."  Letting loose and simply being silly is way outside my wheelhouse.  (I know I shortchanged my boys as a dad when they were little simply by my seeming inability to play.)  But I've come to realize that the spirit of playfulness is absolutely critical to creativity.  I don't mean that every creative endeavor should be funny or whimsical; but that sense of pushing the boundaries, of letting the horse have its head and seeing where you end up, is at the heart of what it means to be creative.

I was recently chatting with another author about times when inspiration in writing will surprise you, coming at you seemingly out of nowhere.  When it happens, the feeling is honestly like the ideas are originating outside of my own brain.  There are two examples of this that come to mind immediately, cases where characters to whom I'd never intended to give a big role basically said, "Nuh-uh, you're not sidelining me.  I'm important, and here's why."  (If you're curious, the two are Jennie Trahan in my novella "Convection," and most strikingly, Marig Kastella in The Chains of Orion, who kind of took over the last third of the book, and became one of my favorite characters I've ever written.)  When that happens, it means I've loosened my death-grip on the story, and given my creativity space to breathe.

And it always is a hallmark of things going really right with the writing process.

So I guess the point of all this is to encourage you to stretch your boundaries in your own creative work.  I won't say "lose your fears" -- that's hopeless advice -- but try something new despite them.  (Either something new within your chosen creative medium, or something entirely new.)  Be willing to throw your creative life out of round, to press it into new and unexpected configurations, to turn in a new direction and see where you end up.  There's good stuff to be found there outside of the narrow, constricted, breathless little boundaries of what we've always been told is "the right way to do things."  Take a risk.  Then take another one.  The goal of creativity is not to play it safe.

As French author and Nobel laureate André Gide put it, "One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore."

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NEW!  We've updated our website, and now -- in addition to checking out my books and the amazing art by my wife, Carol Bloomgarden, you can also buy some really cool Skeptophilia-themed gear!  Just go to the website and click on the link at the bottom, where you can support your favorite blog by ordering t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, bumper stickers, and tote bags, all designed by Carol!

Take a look!  Plato would approve.

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Facing the impostor

I'll be honest with you. I've felt like an impostor for most of my life.

My job for over thirty years was teaching science in public schools, mostly biology (and other life-science-related classes).  However, I have neither a bachelors nor a master's degree in biology.  My bachelor's degree is in physics -- and I was a lackluster physics student at best -- and my master's degree is in linguistics, of all things.  Along the way I started a master's program in oceanography, but I was kind of lousy at that, too, and got out of research science entirely.  I've taken enough classes in biology for a teaching license (obviously), but frankly, I learned most of the biology I know by the seat of the pants.

Even in my two favorite avocations -- writing and music -- I didn't get where I am by any kind of legitimate, credentialed pathway.  I wasn't in band in school, having been told that I was no good at it by a 6th grade band director, and taught myself the flute and piano.  I was lucky enough to study flute with a wonderful teacher, Margaret Vitus, when I was in my twenties, but that is the sum total of my formal musical background.

I don't even have that in writing.  I took two creative writing classes, one in high school, one in college.  The end.

So I've got a striking lack of framed certificates in Latin to hang on my wall.  When I think about it rationally, it doesn't bother me.  I know I'm competent enough at what I do (in all three realms) that I don't have anything to apologize for.  But that visceral voice isn't so kind -- one of the reasons I feel uncomfortable and outclassed when I'm around academics, people who are in my mind "true intellectuals."

Impostor syndrome is all too common.  Way back in the 1970s, it was studied in women, when in interviews of 150 highly successful and professional women, the vast majority experienced no internal sense of accomplishment, and were constantly afraid that they'd be "found out" as having poorer abilities, knowledge, and qualifications than their bosses and coworkers thought.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Mark J Sebastian, Jackie Martinez with a mask, CC BY-SA 2.0]

Recently a team of psychologists gave a closer look to this phenomenon -- and found it's more ubiquitous than anyone thought.  In "Are All Impostors Created Equal?  Exploring Gender Differences in the Impostor Phenomenon-Performance Link," by Rebecca L.Badawy, Brooke A.Gazdag, Jeffrey R. Bentley, and Robyn L. Brouer, of Youngstown State University, Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München, California State University, and Canisius College, respectively, the researchers found that males and females both experience impostor syndrome -- they just respond to it differently.

The research, which appeared in the Journal of Personality and Individual Differences, looked at over 250 people in professional careers, and found some interesting correlations.  First, they did not see a link between feeling like an impostor and actual work performance.  Put more simply; self-styled impostors and people who feel like they deserve to be where they are have about the same levels of competency at work.

What is even more interesting, however, is the difference in reaction between males and females.  In the first experiment, a group was given five problems from the GRE (Graduate Record Examination), used to determine admittance to graduate school.  After working on the problems, they're given feedback on how they did -- but some of the test subjects were told (incorrectly) that they'd gotten all five wrong.

Looking at the responses to this harsh feedback between male "impostors" and female "impostors," the males responded to subsequent tasks with higher anxiety, less effort, and poorer performance, while the females' emotional responses were nearly the opposite -- they were anxious regardless of whether the feedback was positive or negative, but they responded by improving their effort, and their performance went up, too.

In a second experiment, the subjects were told their answers would be shown to a college professor -- placing them in a high-stress, high-accountability context.  Once again, the men who scored high on impostor syndrome responded by an increase in anxiety, and a decrease in both effort and performance; but the women's results were unchanged from a low-stress, low-accountability situation.  The researchers suggested that the cause of the change in the men's responses may have been that exerting lower effort in high-stress situations might give them an "out" to explain poor performance -- but that's only speculation.

As the researchers put it, "Assuming that traditional gender norms hold, males [with impostor syndrome] may have exhibited stronger negative reactions because they believe that society at large values males who demonstrate high competence and at the same time, do not believe that they can fulfill this standard."

Whatever the reason for all this, it's kind of sad, don't you think?  The fact that so many of us can't take honest pleasure in our accomplishments, and feel the need to devalue what we do based on inaccurate standards of who we should be or how we attained our position in our workplace, is a tragedy.  The problem is, these feelings are not rational; I know from experience that all the logical arguments in the world haven't eliminated my sense that I've arrived where I am by illegitimate means.

But I wish -- both for myself and for my fellow impostors -- that it was that easy to eliminate.

****************************************

Facing the impostor

I'll be honest with you.  I've felt like an impostor for most of my life.

My job for over thirty years has been teaching science in public schools, mostly biology (and other life-science-related classes).  However, I have neither a bachelors nor a master's degree in biology.  My bachelor's degree is in physics -- and I was a lackluster physics student at best -- and my master's degree is in linguistics, of all things.  Along the way I started a master's program in oceanography, but I was kind of lousy at that, too, and got out of research science entirely.  I've taken enough classes in biology for a teaching license (obviously), but frankly, I learned most of the biology I know by the seat of the pants.

Even in my two favorite avocations -- writing and music -- I didn't get where I am by any kind of legitimate, credentialed pathway.  I wasn't in band in school, having been told that I was no good at it by a 6th grade band director, and taught myself the flute and piano.  I was lucky enough to study flute with a wonderful teacher, Margaret Vitus, when I was in my twenties, but that is the sum total of my formal musical background.

I don't even have that in writing.  I took two creative writing classes, one in high school, one in college.  The end.

So I've got a striking lack of framed certificates in Latin to hang on my wall.  When I think about it rationally, it doesn't bother me.  I know I'm competent enough at what I do (in all three realms) that I don't have anything to apologize for.  But that visceral voice isn't so kind -- one of the reasons I feel uncomfortable and outclassed when I'm around academics, people who are in my mind "true intellectuals."

Impostor syndrome is all too common.  Way back in the 1970s, it was studied in women, when in interviews of 150 highly successful and professional women, the vast majority experienced no internal sense of accomplishment, and were constantly afraid that they'd be "found out" as having poorer abilities, knowledge, and qualifications than their bosses and coworkers thought.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Mark J Sebastian, Jackie Martinez with a mask, CC BY-SA 2.0]

Now, a team of psychologists has given a closer look to this phenomenon -- and have found it's more ubiquitous than anyone thought.  In "Are All Impostors Created Equal? Exploring Gender Differences in the Impostor Phenomenon-Performance Link," by Rebecca L.Badawy, Brooke A.Gazdag, Jeffrey R. Bentley, and Robyn L. Brouer, of Youngstown State University, Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München, California State University, and Canisius College, respectively, the researchers found that males and females both experience impostor syndrome -- they just respond to it differently.

The research, which appeared last week in the Journal of Personality and Individual Differences, looked at over 250 people in professional careers, and found some interesting correlations.  First, they did not see a link between feeling like an impostor and actual work performance.  Put more simply; self-styled impostors and people who feel like they deserve to be where they are have about the same levels of competency at work.

What is even more interesting, however, is the difference in reaction between males and females.  In the first experiment, a group was given five problems from the GRE (Graduate Record Examination), used to determine admittance to graduate school.  After working on the problems, they're given feedback on how they did -- but some of the test subjects were told (incorrectly) that they'd gotten all five wrong.

Looking at the responses to this harsh feedback between male "impostors" and female "impostors," the males responded to subsequent tasks with higher anxiety, less effort, and poorer performance, while the females' emotional responses were nearly the opposite -- they were anxious regardless of whether the feedback was positive or negative, but they responded by improving their effort, and their performance went up, too.

In a second experiment, the subjects were told their answers would be shown to a college professor -- placing them in a high-stress, high-accountability context.  Once again, the men who scored high on impostor syndrome responded by an increase in anxiety, and a decrease in both effort and performance; but the women's results were unchanged from a low-stress, low-accountability situation.  The researchers suggested that the cause of the change in the men's responses may have been that exerting lower effort in high-stress situations might give them an "out" to explain poor performance -- but that's only speculation.

As the researchers put it, "Assuming that traditional gender norms hold, males [with impostor syndrome] may have exhibited stronger negative reactions because they believe that society at large values males who demonstrate high competence and at the same time, do not believe that they can fulfill this standard."

Whatever the reason for all this, it's kind of sad, don't you think?  The fact that so many of us can't take honest pleasure in our accomplishments, and feel the need to devalue what we do based on inaccurate standards of who we should be or how we attained our position in our workplace, is a tragedy.  The problem is, these feelings are not rational; I know from experience that all the logical arguments in the world haven't eliminated my sense that I've arrived where I am by illegitimate means.

But I wish -- both for myself and for my fellow impostors -- that it was that easy to eliminate.

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This week's featured book is the amazing Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, which looks at the fact that we have two modules in our brain for making decisions -- a fast one, that mostly works intuitively, and a slower one that is logical and rational.  Unfortunately, they frequently disagree on what's the best course of action.  Worse still, trouble ensues when we rely on the intuitive one to the exclusion of the logical one, calling it "common sense" when in fact it's far more likely to come from biases rather than evidence.

Kahneman's book will make you rethink how you come to conclusions -- and make you all too aware of how frail the human reasoning capacity is.