File this one under FWIW.
So I had dinner with this interesting couple last night. Both painters.
She teaches sometimes.
One thing she said that I am very much mulling over is that she tells her students they cannot, must not love their work -- the goal is to respect it.
Loving it creates a form of proximity that prevents you from seeing the flaws. Like being in love-love with someone, it's a distorting spell or fog.
The comment had an instantaneous effect on me, because while the cultivation of a shrewd inner audience is arguably my writing priority #1, I still get high when the work is going well -- and never really put the brakes on it because, well, it's fun to feel giddy when the work is going well, right? Given all the hours/decades/karmic cycles of teeth-gnashing, why not celebrate the breakthroughs?
But this feels like one of those distinctions that separate the men/women from the boys/girls. Something to do with recognizing, and accepting, the fact that you are not the work, and the work isn't you. Irrational exuberance is just that.
Still mulling, but right now I think I'm in that odd, bittersweet place where we suddenly realize it's time to leave a love behind, because we must. Very odd business, growing up. Sh*t just never ends.
So I had dinner with this interesting couple last night. Both painters.
She teaches sometimes.
One thing she said that I am very much mulling over is that she tells her students they cannot, must not love their work -- the goal is to respect it.
Loving it creates a form of proximity that prevents you from seeing the flaws. Like being in love-love with someone, it's a distorting spell or fog.
The comment had an instantaneous effect on me, because while the cultivation of a shrewd inner audience is arguably my writing priority #1, I still get high when the work is going well -- and never really put the brakes on it because, well, it's fun to feel giddy when the work is going well, right? Given all the hours/decades/karmic cycles of teeth-gnashing, why not celebrate the breakthroughs?
But this feels like one of those distinctions that separate the men/women from the boys/girls. Something to do with recognizing, and accepting, the fact that you are not the work, and the work isn't you. Irrational exuberance is just that.
Still mulling, but right now I think I'm in that odd, bittersweet place where we suddenly realize it's time to leave a love behind, because we must. Very odd business, growing up. Sh*t just never ends.
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