passion and popularity

27th January 2012

Post reblogged from Flutiebear: Rambling My Way Through Thedas with 104 notes

passion and popularity

It’s human to wonder, sure, in that I suppose all emotional responses are human. But what’s the point of it? I mean, I don’t go for out for a jog and then beat myself up because I can’t run my mile in 4 minutes like the world-class marathoners do. If I ask myself, “well, why can’t I run a mile in 4 minutes?” I could make a long list of reasons that would include everything from “you don’t train 8 hours a day” to “your lungs can’t process oxygen that efficiently” to “you’re an overweight old woman well past her athletic prime”.

That’s not to say I should just give up and accept my mediocrity. But rather, I should recognize that comparing myself to the outliers ignores that there’s this whole rest of the bell curve that I could be moving along. Success shouldn’t be measured by extremes, because for 99.99% of people, that kind of success just isn’t repeatable.

I just don’t ever want to tell myself or somebody else who’s there that they’re wrong. Because that tends to make the feeling worse, you know? When you feel miserable, and then somebody says, well, you feel miserable because you’re functioning wrong and now you should change.
For me it’s more of a, comparing yourself like that can be dangerous - and there are other ways to think about it. Which I think is what you’re trying to say, and I’m just flailing around now. XD

Well, I am definitely saying that the attitude that Fandom is Competition — that we’re all participating in one big gladiator ring where only the winner survives — that is wrong. Not just an alternative way of thinking about it. It’s incorrect, because we’re not. You can’t win fandom. You just can’t. That’s like trying to win purple, or square. Just won’t happen, no matter how hard you try.

Competitiveness in fandom isn’t just self-defeating. I mean, what does it say about how that hyper-competitive person perceives the rest of the fandom? How can he ever truly appreciate what someone else creates, if he’s always treating his own work as a contest entry? Is he always “rating” other fanworks, fanart in his head?

I’m certainly not trying to make you or anyone else feel bad, but—and I mean this as kindly as possible—if comparing yourself to others makes you miserable, then stop doing it. Step away from the keyboard, click unfollow, whatever you need to do. Because in that scenario, you’re the one making yourself miserable, not the people you compare yourself to. Do whatever you can to be fair to yourself, because in the end that’s the only voice that really matters.

In my experience, it’s quite possible (and very, very unpleasant) to both know that the competitive model is worthless and bunk, and still not be able to extract yourself from it.

I agree with you, wholly, that it’s unproductive and dangerous. I never meant to say that it wasn’t. But it’s also very, very hard to shake. It’s not a switch to flip.

When I realize I’m letting it color how I see things? I do unfollow people. I savior them. I pull away. I do things to take care of myself and give myself space to get on top of the damn thing again and convince myself that it’s not true. But the fact that sometimes it gets ahold of me and it makes me feel like shit? I can’t allow myself to think that it makes me a failure or a bad person.

That was the point I was trying to make.

If you never think like it’s a competition, or you’ve gotten over it, more power to you. But I know I’m not the only one who finds it a struggle, and that’s why I’m getting involved at all - so that maybe one person sees it and goes Oh, so I’m not failing at the moment because I am a bad person, maybe I can do this.

Yes, it’s a very very toxic mindset. But it’s not easy to shrug off.

Source: minorearth

serindrana

passion and popularity