Thursday 18 February 2016

Other lives

People watching

One of the things that has always intrigued me is how my life is so important to me, but to anyone else is almost meaningless. Aside from a fairly limited group of friends, the vast majority of people I see every day wouldn't even class as acquaintances. To those people, rushing past in the busy city centre, I am nothing. And to me, that random couple across the street are just scenery.

When I think about the number of people who have glanced at me without caring, or pushed past me, or stepped to one side to let me past, I realise how unthinkably large the number of people I've been in contact with is. So I decided to start taking note.

Instead of ignoring the people I don't know, I watch for a little bit (not in a creepy way) and try to work out what's going on in their lives. For example, that man holding two cups of coffee, who's the other one for? A friend? A partner? Is he just so tired he needs an extra cup? Or that woman adjusting their suit, why are they so worried? Maybe they have an interview? Or a date? Or they just want to look smart? I don't know but it's fun to come up with ideas.

So many things that I see have such stories behind them. An idea I've entertained for a while is writing a story where random people in the street take over the narration and become the main character. Unfortunately I don't have the free time or the patience to work out such a complex story - but maybe one day I'll give it a go.

Funny looks

If you've ever gone out somewhere dressed in an extravagant or unusual way, you may well have experienced this for yourself. I'm talking about the times everyone seems to glance at you as you walk towards them. There is definitely a 'weirdness threshold' (as I will call it) beyond which you will find yourself the subject of a large amount of attention. Through extensive research* I have identified a number of criteria for reaching this threshold.
*Extensive research may or may not be extensive and may or may not be research.

Disclaimer: If you use my techniques I take no responsibility for any funny looks, confusion or laughter caused

1) Outward vs. inward

To seem weird enough to be noticed, the weird aspect of you must be something visible. For instance, wishing you were a purple jelly bean, though sufficiently weird, will not gain the focus of anyone around unless you actually paint yourself purple or wear a jelly bean costume. The most obvious things to the average passer-by are clothing, anything on your face and how you are moving. Wearing strange clothes, heavy/vibrant makeup or large piercings are good ways to reach the threshold. Walking with a limp or skipping will often be just as effective.

2) Range of notice

To reach the great heights of the weirdness threshold it is important that your weird aspect must be visible from far enough away for people to notice as they hurry past with their busy lives. Writing "Hello, I'm Bob" on your forehead can potentially draw attention, but not if you write it too small. 

3) Extent of weirdness

At some levels of weirdness, people will not take notice. It is possible to be fairly weird without getting more than one or two looks. Take leaning on something for instance:
As you can see, the first posture wouldn't draw attention, the second might a little bit, but the third has passed the threshold and would be noticeable to anyone nearby.

Fear

Sometimes I get scared of being around lots of people. I know that I'm different to a lot of people - there aren't many who seem to be a completely different gender at the weekends - so I'm often worried people will look at me and think: "freak". Of course, most people don't look hard enough to notice anything odd, so my fears are often misplaced. But sometimes even being in a crowd puts me on edge.

The urgency of everyone rushing past, as if anything in their way would be pushed aside or trampled over without thought. It sets my heart beating faster than my panicking footsteps, one step the wrong way and I'm suddenly in the wrong place at the wrong time. I try to keep my head down and my path straight. But it's not just crowds that scare me...

I find it hard to do many things in public. I'm not sure if that's because I'm British or because I have some kind of social anxiety. One of the things that makes me stressed is paying for things, not because I don't like spending money, but because I take so long to get my money out and put the change in my wallet. I can feel the person behind me get more and more irritated the longer it takes.

I try to avoid at all costs the complication of pubic bathrooms - whichever I use I risk being kicked out. If I'm presenting as fully female, it makes sense to go to the women's but, if someone realised I am not biologically female I could be in a lot of trouble. If I go into the men's it is likely that people will think I'm a girl and therefore I shouldn't be there. So I avoid it as much as I can.

I suppose one day I will become more confident in these situations (and many others) but for now it makes going anywhere pretty stressful.

Our world is full of expectations and eyes, social constructs that tell us how to act, interact and feel. Sometimes I wish I could ignore them more easily.

Thursday 4 February 2016

Creativity

Self-criticism

It's often easy to be self-critical, particularly if your interests are creative. There's no way to definitively measure success when it comes to the arts, which means writers, artists and musicians tend to spend a lot of their time convincing themselves that they'll never make it. I consider myself very lucky in that I have both academic skill and creative skill, but it is far easier to know how well you're doing at say, physics or maths, simply because you are either right or wrong. Meanwhile, though I can measure how many songs I've played or how many poems I've written, I still have no real grasp of where I stand in the grand scheme of things.

I have found myself on many a night staring at my as yet unpublished poem of the day thinking: "Well this is terrible." But by that time it's too late to start again, so I click 'publish' anyway and punish myself internally for inflicting such words on the public. Of course, I am always assured that said poem is better than I think, but the more I read it the more I see problems with it.

It's the same with drawing, I've finished sketches fairly happy with the result, but the more I look, the worse it gets. In the end I try and fix the mistakes and more often than not find myself longing for a real life undo button. And of course, no composition is ever perfect, it never quite sounds how it does in my head.

Now, obviously it is important as any form of artist to know when something is too far gone to be worth pursuing, but we all, collectively, find it very difficult to believe that our work is worth it. The sad thing is, ideas that could become masterpieces can be thrown away in a moment of self-doubt.

Selective hearing

The easiest way to find out if what you're doing is any good is to ask someone. Getting a new perspective is always useful, whether they like what you're doing or not. Now, the problem (certainly for me at least) is that we're naturally very good at hearing criticism and a little deaf in the praise department.

A hundred positive comments don't have nearly the same impact as one or two negative comments. Thankfully, most of the time, the comments I get are either positive or constructive rather than "this video make me sick" or "wow this poem sux" etc. But when someone tells you that your work needs improving, it can stick in your mind for a lot longer than someone saying it’s great. Perhaps it is modesty, or a fear of seeming too full of yourself, but receiving feedback always seems to turn into another chance to beat yourself up.

Of course, we should listen to feedback, but we shouldn’t let it take over what we’ve done – and sometimes, we need the confidence to say that actually it’s better like this. You are the one in control.

Education

Over the past years, particularly in the UK where I live, there has been a certain reluctance to acknowledge the arts as ‘real subjects’. Students are often encouraged to take sciences or maths (and yes, maths has an ‘s’ at the end) simply because they are the ‘core’ of learning. I’ll try not to get too side-tracked with a rant about education (I’m sure it will be covered in many, many future blogs) but the fact is, the system in this country works perfectly for people with a certain kind of mind, but horribly for people with a different kind. What I mean by that is, if you can memorise facts, use maths with ease and visualise scientific concepts, you will breeze through school with flying colours. If you can’t, you’re pretty much screwed. It’s not fair, because there are whole generations of people who have amazing talents who believe they are failures.

When I came to choose my A-levels I had a lot of pressure from all sides to take a lot of subjects. I’m not saying this to boast, basically I have the ‘right’ kind of mind for school. I knew I was going to take Physics and Maths already – I had very little choice and no real objections to that – but my other two subjects came down to my decision. Now, anyone who knows me will know I am absolutely shocking at making decisions. I’m the kind of person who can spend a good twenty minutes deciding which sandwich to get for lunch (egg & cress has its merits, but is it really as filling as chicken? I don’t know! Maybe I should just get both – but then that’s too much! What do I do?!). So choosing between all my options was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. The day before I made my decision I was convinced I was going to do French and Chemistry as my other two subjects – after all, two sciences, a language and maths would look great on a university application – but on the last day, I happened to notice the Creative Writing course. I looked into it and I was sold – this was perfect for me! Then I spoke to my music teachers and I realised that I couldn’t bear to leave it behind. So I surprised everyone by being one of the only straight A* students to choose two art subjects. Best decision of my life.

For the sake of my sanity, my workload and my development into “maturity” (I use the term loosely) I could not have chosen better. I have come on tremendously as a writer and music has been a sanctuary that I could not have managed without. What I'm trying to say in a kind of weird and tangent-filled way is this:

The art subjects may not look as good on a UCAS form, but they are incredibly valuable and we cannot allow creativity to die. Most importantly, taking an art subject doesn’t make you lazy or stupid – it makes you different in a way that really should be celebrated.

So what's my point?

Whatever it is you're pursuing, creative or not, it has to start with the confidence in yourself to be able to make it. I’m not saying just write a novel without changing a word, but sometimes we need to take a step back from all the negativity and just look at what we’ve made. Allow ourselves that moment to appreciate what we’ve managed to do, without worrying about that word which doesn’t quite flow in chapter 6 or that line that’s a little wonky next to that tree. Creating art is not about perfection, if it was artists would have been replaced with photographers long ago, it’s about doing something no one’s ever done before.

And that is something to be proud of.