The Dinner Party
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I'm reading Getting to Yes with Yourself: (and Other Worthy Opponents), which is interesting and in which author William Ury talks about how to negotiate with yourself. Early on, he encourages you to give your critical inner-voices personalities and to think of them as guests at a dinner party. His idea is: look, these things aren't leaving, you might as well name them and try to understand them as a way of more effectively dealing with them. Clearly, IANAA (I Am Not an Artist), but I follow Paul Greer on Instagram at @burningfp, and his sketches, which, unlike mine, are terrific, inspired me to draw some of the creatures at my dinner party. So, here is The Shrew, which whines and complains a lot. It's female and consists of a ball of fat with a matting of hair stuck to it. Meet "Judgey," a cat with mange who is never anything but critical of others. There's Hypochron, whose superpower is overreacting to everything and also catastrophizing. Let's not forget Lay-Ze-Bonez, which is quick to pronounce any lag in productivity a testament to one's laziness. And, finally, we've got I'm Thirsty. I'm Thirsty is a head-only it-thing that lives at the bottom of a glass that is barely filled with water. It's always thirsty. Despite the water. I hope you enjoyed meeting my new friends! It's actually been sort of interesting and effective to think of the voices in this way. It makes them easier to be rational in relationship to. Let's face it, these guys suck. As Ury writes: "Self-judgment may be the greatest barrier to self-understanding."
Buy THE TUMOR, a digital short by Susannah Breslin that's been called "A masterpiece of short fiction."