Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Creative Jealousy, Frustration, and a Cattle Dog


If you're like me, you've felt the green-eyed monster's bite on occasion. This, of course, is Jealousy.

While I've never been one to get jealous of other's possessions or things, I have been jealous of other's creative endeavors. I've been surly to see the success of creative people, and I've belly-ached over why it can't ever be me. It wasn't a pretty thing.

My poor husband would listen to me complain over and over again, "How come THEY get to do all this creative stuff, and I don't ever get to!" Not that I disparaged people for being creative, or thought they weren't any good (at least most of the time). It was usually more like I was baffled and envious. How come other people could pursue their artist things and have success and how come I couldn't? And it was doubly worse if they got paid to do art; it was the final straw on my straw pile of self-pity. As a side note, in case you've never seen a straw pile of self-pity, it isn't pretty. And like fighting a straw man, it is energy going towards nothing.

The question I should have been asking was, "Why does the artistic success of others bother me so much?" This is a harder question to ask then "why do they get all the breaks?" I think part of the reason lay in my own frustration. I was not pursuing any of my creative dreams; I was not using any of my creative propensities for much beyond the occasional sewing or craft project. I had something in me that wasn't being used, let out, developed. And I was frustrated.

To better understand frustration, follow me back a few years to the sad tale of Moondog. It begins when my husband and I were living in a big city with no kids and one aging dog and decided, on a whim, to adopt a 5 month old Australian Cattle Dog.

 At first things weren't that bad. We went to dog parks, went on lots of walks, and the dog was just a puppy. But then we had puppies (or babies) of our own. We moved out of the city. The dog moved down a level in our attention and ability to give it the exercise it needed. And make no mistake, a dog bred specifically to herd cattle for 10 hours a day in the rough terrain of Australia NEEDED exercise. These dogs were herding dogs bred with wild Dingoes to give them the stamina they needed, because all the regular sheep dogs kept dying. These are some serious working breed dogs. 

But of course we didn't know any of that. And we didn't know that these dog's were very smart and needed mental work as much as physical work to do. Without this need fulfilled in some meaningful work, Moondog was neurotic. Although sweet (at least to us) he was nervous and aggressive around other dogs and people. On walks he would lunge at people in uniforms, old ladies, anyone who walked funny, and on and on. He would lunge at kids on skateboards, trying desperately to aggressively herd anything he could. He ripped a kid's pants, and scratched his leg. Other times, he would be fine. It drove us crazy. 

We hired an Animal Behaviorist to help us figure him out (even though we couldn't afford to). My husband often went on long bike rides with Moondog running beside. He taught him to catch frisbees. We hid things around the house and played games with him to find the objects. But Moondog continued his aberrant behavior (at least aberrant for a city dog). We often mourned the fact he couldn't just do what he was bred to do, because we knew he would be great at it.  

In the end, we know we couldn't have done more for him, but we feel like we failed that dog. And when eventually he bit a man (for real) on the thigh, we realized we couldn't ensure he wouldn't hurt someone. We had to put him down: a beautiful, healthy dog that just wasn't meant for the world he found himself in. 

When I think of him, I realize the frustration that dog must have felt. And although it is not the same thing exactly, I think when creative people don't do what they have the strong desire in themselves to do, it creates all kinds of unsightly things. I know for me this has been true. I used to feel that I could do creative things and do them well, but I was so paralyzed by fear of failure that I didn't want to even try.  I figured if I didn't try for my dream and lose, or have it taken from me, at least I still had my dream. And it was precious to me and well-guarded. And so I felt jealous. I was jealous when people who were pursuing their dreams had success. And I started to see it like others got to do things and I didn't get to. 

But my friends, having come out the other side of this kind of stinky-thinking, I can now see that the only thing successful creative people really have is actual something pretty simple. They have the tenacity to not give up, the drive to work hard to improve their craft, and they find the right venue for their natural artistic abilities. It's not magic. It's not a special calling or blessing from the Cosmos that says they get to do this and other people don't.  

So if you find you are jealous at the success of others (or mean, spitting, and hateful), take a moment to ask yourself, "What is it I wish I could do?" And once you've named this, why aren't you doing it? No matter where you're at, there is some small step you can take to start down the path. For me the small step was just letting myself peruse the writing section at the library, and checking out a book called On Becoming a Novelist, by John Gardner. 

And I think you'll find, even if you are still a long, long ways off from your end goal, you'll find joy just in moving and not plopping and grumbling at all the people who are passing you by.