Fear of nothing?

Yesterday I was taking a grand excursion of the Youtube world (read: I was procrastinating my homework and landed on random videos), when I had realized that Charlieissocoollike, one of my favorite British vloggers, hadn't posted a video in a while. Having always felt better after seeing of his "fun science" videos, or just hearing a random story from his day, I'd wondered if he perhaps fell of the face of the Earth. He himself hadn't, but I was rather disheartened when I found out that his confidence had disappeared:

It's a little troubling to find that someone who is so liked by so many can still feel terribly insecure, like his work means nothing to the world, and that even a sexy British accent can't make him feel better. Yet I think this "everything I do is total shit; why can't I just be like so-and-so who can do amazing such-and-such without even trying?" phenomenon is universal to humans, even if it's ridiculous to make such generalizations. I doubt there is anyone in this world who is awful at everything, and the people who seem to just grab talent out of thin air actually put in a ton of effort. But instead of taking things on an individual level, we see anyone in the history of the world who was ever good at baseball, or tennis, or hitting people over the head with a baseball bat, and compile them into one untouchable person who we must become, or we'll all be failures. Not only is this incredibly stressful to think that everything we do must be above an "acceptable" skill level, but it's impossible.

I say this not being immune to the expectation to be good at everything. I suck at sports. If you throw a ball at me, I will run in the exact opposite direction. In middle school, I got hit in the head with a volleyball multiple times. I can't run a mile. I can dance like nobody's watching (except everybody's secretly watching and laughing at me), but I have absolutely no interest in running or chasing after balls. Yet there was one unfortunate day when some guy I was trying to impress who happened to be good at skiing, asked if I could join him. Now normally during the winter, I curl up into a little ball with a mug of hot chocolate and every season of How I met Your Mother until my body thaws out again. This fateful winter, I decided to show I was an excellent skiier because otherwise, I was bound to be a complete failure at life. It didn't matter that the guy couldn't write well (nor was he interested in it) or dance, it was only a disgrace that I was bad at his interests. So after one shaky lesson on the bunny hill, I decided to show my skills at the top of the mountain, fell off the ski path and into the forest. And the guy who I now had zero hope of ever impressing had to pull the helpless victim of pride and silly expectations back onto the path.*

*Editors note: No underlying feminist connotations were meant by that story. He literally did have to pull me back onto the ski path. 

I got better at skiing, but I also realized I still wasn't interested enough to excel at it. And guess what, I'm still living, I'm still good at stuff. Just not that stuff.

Charlie's video also got me thinking about the hobbies that I do put time and effort into, yet still sometimes feel less than skilled at. More often than not, I feel the "shitty first draft" syndrome while writing. The dialogue feels constrained, the descriptions clichéd. And sometimes, okay, oftentimes, I give up. I have a pile of stories I started with gusto and intentions of taking far, then got angry with. It's a vicious cycle. But something NanoWriMo has taught me is that even when you feel like no great (or even mediocre) ideas will pop into your head, you just keep writing. Sometimes what I write in my Nano story makes absolutely no sense. Sometimes my characters contradict what they've just done. But then there's that incredible moment when, in the midst of all the crappy character development and God-awful dialogue, when you see a genius idea that you can expand on. Then the writing gets not-so-genius again. Then you get a stroke of inspiration. Like anything in life, success lies on a spectrum. As does respect for yourself.

We all have moments of insecurity (even you, oh person who's crossing your arms and claiming you're "too proud to be insecure." Yes, you, with the face, and the hair, and the clothes). But we also all have moments of genius and times that you want to (and should!) revel in your awesomeness. Charlieissocoollike does a fantastic job of articulating a universal feeling, but it is not a permanent one.

No friends, we are not doomed to permanent suck-ery. Which means you shant feel the need for permanent insecurity.

Namaste.

P.S. No bones were injured in the making of the skiing story, only pride. :P