(Image: Me, on the right with a green shirt that says, ‘Here comes trouble’. I had just started Grade 1 which meant, in the early 70s at least, that I had yet to learn how to write. This photo was taken in Papua New Guinea with my brother (the tall one) and a couple of friends. We didn’t write, we played.)
My first takeaway (what I’ve learnt from writing) is that… We decide who we see in the mirror tomorrow. (Part of the ‘3 for Me’ project by @AmyBurvall)
This comes back to our old friend self-doubt (Loved your bubble sketch of that one, by the way, Amy, from your Bursting Bubbles, Trashing Trolls post). Writing the novels and even more so with an academic monster like a PhD, taught me that doubt is all about self. In fact, in order to doubt someone else, you have to care pretty strongly about what they are doing and in my experience at least, people are too wrapped up in their own bubbles to take the time to doubt you. Yet, we continue to perceive it, invent it. If they do doubt you, take it as a compliment as they are seeing beyond their own bubble. Self-doubt is self-defeating, it is self-deprecating, it is self-inhibiting and it is self-denying. However, it is not self-destroying, quite the opposite, in fact. It is actually self-preserving, which is very safe, but it is preserving the old you, the one that you saw in the mirror this morning. It is holding back the one you could potentially be seeing in the mirror tomorrow. This is your choice. In this sense, I came to understand through my inner struggles during the writing process that we decide whom we see in the mirror tomorrow by rejecting the self-preserving self-doubt, as safe as it may seem. We do this by taking the plunge, despite the doubt. How bad could it be? (29 June 2015)