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There is something in artistic work that I keep struggling with, which is a relentless self-opinion that keeps inserting itself into my brain. How am I doing? Am I doing this well? Am I good at it? Do other people think I’m good at it? Oops, I just screwed up. Did anyone else see?

The answers to these questions affect my performance. For the most part, the effect is negative. As I get increasingly self-conscious, I lose touch with the impulse that’s moving me forward, obsess about how I look, and start to suck, which reinforces the need to keep questioning myself—so it’s a downward spiral that is difficult to extricate myself from. This is true of performance for me in any style or medium.

So I have spent a lot of time in my life, at least since high school when I started to be aware of this tendency, trying to shut down my ego, with lackluster results. It’s a complex entity. Here’s what I’m thinking about my progress on that front here at Double Edge (ie. “how am I doing?” arrrrgh!)

One thing that I’m relieved about is that, coming back to Double Edge a couple of years later, I find that I actually am more curious about how the process itself works, and less invested in getting it right personally. This could be because I’m starting to get that this particular process is particularly resistant to getting it “right” anyway. It could also be that I’ve made progress on that particular ego front. Anyway, I tend not to suffer as much when I’m failing as I used to do.

One thing that I’m dismayed about is that I’m struggling to retain my beginner’s mind. In this front of the Ego Wars, I seem to have lost ground. I know more than I used to; I think of myself as knowing more than I used to; and when presented with a different way to go about something than the one that I know, I seem to be more inclined than before to privately decide that my way is the ‘right’ way. This ranges from simple things like a back-to-back partner carry (doing it the Double Edge way resulted in uncomfortable backs. The leader concluded that we simply weren’t flexible enough, rather than making the adjustment that I wanted to make—lifting with the flyer a bit lower down on the base’s back) to bigger things like how to communicate about the ideas behind a show.

Now, it’s obviously good to doubt, to question, to analyze and form my own opinion about material that’s being presented to me. However, if I do this reflexively, before I’ve even tried the new way or lived with the new way or tried to understand the new way, then this tendency will prevent me from learning anything that I don’t already know. It will certainly make it harder for me to change my mind. So the balancing act, I think, is in when to make the judgment calls. Is it that I need to take on what information I am given, treat it as true and work with it until I have more questions, go away and let it steep in my brain, come back and try again, and go away again—and THEN make evaluations about which way is “better?” Or should the opinion come sooner, or later? I have to keep remembering that I am here not to conduct operations but to absorb a new way of doing things. When I’m home in Seattle doing my own project, then I can do it my way. Maybe I shouldn’t question until then. But then, of course, the experts in the Double Edge way won’t be around to answer my objections, which is a wasted opportunity. So I keep feeling it out, grabbing them when I can—but everyone is so frightfully busy on the show…

I do think there’s strength in being able to articulate the questions. If I can say in the moment of initial doubt “why do we do it this way?” or “This seems like a drawback. Is there something I’m missing?” then my doubt has become productive. But I’m often slow to be able to put my finger on just what it is that’s nagging at me, and the moment will have passed. So there’s something to work on.

There’s another thing about this self-evaluation business that I’ve been considering, which has to do with confidence. If the answer to “am I good at this?” is “yes” then I’ve noticed a marked improvement, an increased ease, in my own work. I’m more inclined to take risks, and less inclined to take failure personally. I’m more likely to break new ground and fill my role wholeheartedly. How do I reconcile this occasional positive effect of the self-evaluation with all the negatives I’ve been heaping on it?

Still grappling with the need to be good,
Alissa