When I attended a very fancy music school, the first 4 months of its freshman music theory class was focused entirely on a “system” of writing “Gregorian Chant Counterpoint.” It was an interesting, and totally mechanical, approach. It was essentially a rule book of what was “legal” to do with each pair of notes, depending on what had happened with the previous two notes you had written. The fabulous part was, even if you were tone deaf, you could write something that would, to the cursory listener, sound like real live gregorian chant music. Even better, if people didn’t like it, well, this was no big deal, as they were not rejecting you personally, they simply did not like what a mechanical “system” had produced. You had multiple armor plating to protect your vulnerable self from any shaming feelings: You could claim you were following official rules, and you had no real emotional investment in the proceeding anyway.
I once knew a piano player who only played hardcore contemporary abstract music. When I asked him why, he said, in all seriousness: “Because no one knows if I play a wrong note.” His vulnerability was protected from any shaming derisive comments by this musical obfuscation.
When you look at any open comment section on any important website/topic, you will inevitably see a “flaming” derisive shaming sort of communication. No wonder we try to find ways of protecting ourselves from it. Unfortunately, in seeking such protections by suppressing any exposure of our oh so sensitive living spirits, there is always a trade-off.
One of the reasons small children learn so much so fast is because they are “all in” emotionally. They do not seek to “get certified” in speaking english or walking. They just go at it, and they let their mistakes be put on display. Of course when someone makes a critical comment, they get upset, but for a few years at least, they cannot build any emotional shields. Thus, they are totally invested in the process of learning, and they make us “adult learners” look pretty pathetic in comparison. There is no “system” that compares with this kind of total passion, trust, and emotional intensity.
I have come to realize that this self-protective shell-building of “commitment, trust and emotional exposure not required” systems and methods are to be found everywhere. But there are a few people that I have been privileged to know that did not adopt the emotionally safe harbor of these mechanical systems. Instead, they went the other way. And every single one of them was a star.
There is no getting around the fact that human beings are emotional critters. If your goal is to achieve customer satisfaction or maximum creativity, it cannot be done at arm’s length; you have to “put yourself out there.” Here is no emotionally “safe” way to do top performance. You must risk failure and you must expose yourself to the slings and arrows of hecklers. self-appointed critics, aficionados of the mechanical systems, and outrageous anonymous online comments.
The world is filled with people who are convinced that these emotional jabs can be got round. The believe that if they are just clever enough, they can get maximum performance via a purely mechanical approach that eliminates all risk of exposing emotional vulnerability to insult or sneering anonymous online comments. You can’t. You just learn to deal with it. You have to look really hard at yourself and accept your flawed self, so these sneering comments do not throw you off. You must then see past the sneering comments, and instead see the fear and traumatized vulnerability that it is expressing; you must also learn to forgive that fear and misguided thinking. This is very hard to do, but it makes the difference between a real artist, and someone who is just trying to fool both themselves and the world into thinking they are an artist.
© Justin Locke
