I'm back at it again. Exactly what, I don't know, but some thoughts need to be generated and words arranged. Recently I've done and read things that might make this hobby a bit easier, in a sense, but I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to venture. But that I don't worry about. Right now.

The thing is that one of the worse habits I've had is to worry about things that needn't be worried. Things like having a point in these words or to say such a point in a manner that makes sense to other people. I've written and then deleted stuff that have been fun to write but which I've felt pointless to publish, but the deletion has been for wrong reasons. I've mostly been deleting them for a defense, of the psychological sort.

Such defenses are, at least in this context, utterly useless. It's mistakes that I should be after, not some imaginary perfection that doesn't even exist. I've known all this for a long time, but knowing and doing are of course two different things. And mind is a funny beast in that you can realize this difference and start thinking even more about doing and feeling that you're then a bit closer to the real thing whereas you're probably just farther away.

Right now I'm fascinated about this irrational fear that prevents one from being open and just saying things that come to mind, on platforms like blogging which are practically made for open thinking. I've been reading a lot of Keith Johnstone and his teaching of improvisation most often comes down to removing the fear of opening up your thought-process. Improvisation's greatest hindrance is thinking in advance, trying to think up clever things to say and so on. Whereas a good improviser is open to whatever his or her mind brings and isn't afraid to give that to open.

And a good improviser isn't afraid to make mistakes. Many of us have this funny perception that when we do a mistake, it's somehow a horrible thing, but when we see someone else do a mistake, in a good spirit at least, it never reflects this view. It's not a big deal. Just don't be ashamed of mistakes, there's nothing dramatic about it. Mistakes are good.

The one particular way people try to "soften" the risk of making a mistake in public is to do things like try to lower one's status before the potential mistake, ie. "well, I'm no good at this", or to have a posture and facial expression that we think is going to make others feel sympathetic for us, and so on, neither of which actually works, but what we're conditioned to do before exposing ourselves to potential humiliation. And the most effective safety mechanism is of course not going into situations where you can make mistakes in public.

Well, as for now on, this is something that I will try to work on or to at least be cognizant of. In other words, I'll try to make more mistakes and I'll try not to feel so bad about it.