Validation. Some people crave it. Some could care less. Most of us probably fall in the muddy middle, swinging willy nilly between craving and caring less.
Sometimes, Your Narrator is reasonably content – yea, even fully satisfied – to do something well and enjoy the doing for its own sake. A well-written post. A nicely turned phrase. A lyrical, melodic line on the guitar. Mastering a new tune. That sort of thing.
Sometimes, YN is r/c – yea, even f/s – with a household chore done well. A clean toilet. A well trimmed hedge. Freshly cut grass. And so on.
Doing something well truly offers its own rewards. Really. No, really.
Usually.
Other times, invisibility seems to have taken over. The good post, the nicely turned melody, the simple chore…if a positive act falls alone in the forest, has it really happened? And even if it has….so the fuck what? Somebody pay attention!
So knowing well that the doing should be sufficient, what swings me to the opposite pole of neediness, of craving the validation? Is this a fundamental weakness? Or is a core need to be seen – and dog forbid, maybe even appreciated – a natural part of the human condition, something as inevitable as hunger or thirst or lust or a desire to lay on the sofa and watch old movies with bags of chips and such?
Whichever is true, the need for validation combined with an ongoing absence of validation is one of my triggers, that set of conditions that puts you off your game, in a funk, down the hole, around the bend, {your preposition here} the {wherever}. And then it gets dark.
It’s been a rough year. The remnants of that damned tick have at last receded into the memory mist, but employment remains elusive. (The news stories we’ve heard about how tough it is for someone over 50 to get work are not fairy tales. It just plain sucks out there.) Some plans and hoped-for outcomes fell to the ground. Other plans and h/f/o hang like undropped shoes. Hope began to feel banal and futile; at best, hopelessly naive. Pessimism became its own reinforcement.
The prescribed remedy – go ahead and do the work anyway – is easier said than done. Some people always seem to be able to muster the energy to persevere. (Or perhaps it only seems that way?) I’m not one of them. Sometimes, despair wraps its bony fingers around my neck and stops me in my tracks.
But.
Things are looking up, it’s always darkest just before the dawn, I can see clearly now, &c. The feelings of dread pass, and of course they always have, so no big surprise there. It’s not as though I’ve been lying on the floor counting ceiling tiles. Life has been pretty busy. There is an article commission – a musicological exposition that has never been made in such detail or with such care – that has occupied most of my writing time. It’s going to be pretty great. I know this because I’ve had two good readers give me the reality check. Validation! I knew (or thought) it was good, but the doubt crept in. The Greek Chorus knew just which tune to call to undermine confidence.
I really sweat blood on this article. A true labor of love, very important to me in so many ways. And now that it’s turned the corner, I’ve got my belief back. I can’t wait for everybody to see it.
Along with that, a couple of other h/f/o have turned my way. And even though none of it amounts to a nickel of income – yet, anyway – there are glimmers of light down the tunnel that might not be an oncoming train. Not gonna get too far out on the optimist limb just yet, but there might be, dare we even whisper it….hope.
Maybe even for the i2b blog. Or maybe not.
My first post at this little bloggy vineyard went up around a year ago. My last post went up about two months ago. Up until that last one, Your Narrator had been doing pretty well, keeping the entertainments rolling and the rants roiling. And then….
And then, the well just seemed to run dry. The Writer could not. Or did not. It’s unclear.
One of a thousand cuts: it seemed that there was no real interest in the blog. A handful of visitors here and there, the gears wouldn’t catch. Attention must be paid!
Mostly, the blog has been a great experience. My writing improved week to week, and at its (my) best, the knowledge that I had to generate something more or less reasonably kind of readable and interesting triggered me to be more engaged with the world, always on the eagle-eye to spot another cool story.
But dammit, now I needs me some validation.
I had to turn off the Comments function on the blog because I was getting 50-60 spam comments on every post. Actual reader comments averaged well below one per post. Not validating!
But strangely enough, the most validating of all comments ever posted here actually came from a spam bot. To wit:
What i don’t understood is in reality how you are not actually a lot more neatly-appreciated than you may be right now. You are so intelligent. You know therefore significantly in terms of this subject, made me in my view consider it from a lot of various angles. Its like men and women are not fascinated except it is something to accomplish with Girl gaga! Your individual stuffs excellent. At all times care for it up!
That was from Tanya3756dc from Uzbekistan. God, how I miss her unwavering support.
Eventually, I added a Donate button to allow grateful readers to show their love – measured in dollars, naturally. That generated exactly zero responses. Zee. Row. Along with the other rejections and dead ends (real and perceived), it all just felt pointless. I was a young Alvy Singer facing the inevitable outcome of an expanding universe. Homework? What’s the point?
But I’m open to reasonable persuasion. This is your chance to ensure that the hard-hitting social commentary and enlightening cultural musings that you’ve grown accustomed to over the past year keep on coming. After all, as Tanya3756dc reminds us: “At all times care for it up!”
Do you, patient reader, love me the way my T3756dc does?
If you send me an email (rob at jakelegg dot com) – imploring me to, for god’s sake, don’t stop the blog, the world will be a bitter and barren place without it – I will take your plea under advisement and perhaps send you a commemorative tote bag. (No, I won’t.) The more you beg, the more you fawn, the more your vote will count.
If you really want your vote to count, click on that Donate button at the top of the right column and drop a few shekls in the tip jar, I will come to your house and recite a blog post written specifically for you while I massage your neck and shoulders with essential oils. (Much as I’d love to, no. Not really.) Remember, the more you give, the more you truly love me.
I’ve done some calculating, and I figure if ten of you donate about $5000 each – or if 50 of you donate $3246 (that’s less than ten dollars a day!) – everything is gonna work out fine, the blog will continue, my dog will get to eat again, and I can get a new coffee mug that does not leak.
Give, or the blog gets it.
Operators are standing by.
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