OBSTACLE

Intuiting that my fear in painting class wasn’t just a temporary problem I was going to get over any time soon, and knowing it wasn’t healthy to live with so much anxiety, I set out to learn to paint on my own. I soon discovered, however, that even though I might experience a measure of confidence about a project while I was in the flush of creation, when I finished it—if I finished it—I invariably became so doubtful about its merit, I wound up either convinced it was worthless or so unsure I didn’t dare show it to anyone. Without positive feedback or guidance, I seemed doomed to repudiate everything I created. Looking back on it now, I know that my insecurity was a function of a larger self-doubt. If you’ve been made to feel you don’t have any value, how can you believe that anything that derives from you does? It was many years before I was able to sustain a sense of satisfaction in anything I created, and I still have trouble believing it could be of interest or value to anybody else.