An Artist and His Insecurity

How to wrestle with Artist Insecurity.

If this article were found in a book store, it would reside  next to a book on how to climb Mount Everest for they are both equally insurmountable.

Every good work is hard work.

If you feel the heart flutter of Insecurity as you near the end of a project it says something about you. It says you are thoughtful. That you are sensible. That you care. All of these are considered a golden crown when compared with the alternative; an artist who is venomously narcissistic. God help them.

It is no virtue to think better of yourself than you should.

Insecurity is a part of our process. It is the voice that says to keep going. That you haven’t arrived yet. That you are not good enough yet. It won’t let our minds turn off at night and rudely wakes us every morning to droning chant of “get to work.” Work harder. Work longer. Do better.

The problem with Insecurity is that it speaks naked truth. And naked truth without the warmth of an embrace hurts. Insecurity does not have arms. The artist often allows the cold steel of Insecurity to paralyze them when its only intent is to prod them onward and upward.

If being secure is to feel as though you have arrived, then security is a lie. Artists know the idea of destination is a myth. The Promised Land is found in the process.

If being secure means to be comfortable with where you are as an artist, then security is death.

If being secure alludes to the feeling of being good-enough, then you will fulfill this self-prophecy with haste. Good-enough is a dangling carrot at the end of a rodent trap.

Insecurity batters and terrorizes the idle artist, but gives wind to the sails of the artist who is doing his work.