Five

Today I sat on the grass in Sea Point, sunburnt, homesick, miserable with many, many thoughts floating through my head, reading Amanda Palmer’s The Art of Asking. And as I read, I cried several times. But in a good way.

A long, long time ago, when I started blogging, I wrote for me and wrote what I wanted to. Over the years, however, I have self-censored too much, to the point where I no longer write anything other than trite little comments. Maybe I will write a bit more for me again.

The bit that got me most though was where she described a conversation with her mother in preparation for a talk at Microsoft, and her mother recalled how teenaged Amanda would say that her mother wasn’t an artist, just a computer programmer. Her mother went on to say:

You know, Amanda, it always bothered me. You can’t see my art, but… I am one of the best artists I know. It’s just… nobody could even see the beautiful things I made. Because you couldn't hang them in a gallery.

While I don’t write programs, I have done and continue to do many, many artistic creative things in my IT career. And while you cannot hang it in a gallery, I am still proud of where I am today. But there has always been this voice, I guess it is the Fraud Police, telling me that I have sold out, because I chose to focus on IT rather than writing. And this happens every time I see a friend or family member publish a book, or do something visibly creative. Maybe now I can finally tell the Fraud Police voice to fuck off.