Saturday, September 29, 2007

Here Comes Da Judge

So far as I'm concerned, all talk about judges has a political subset. Word of a forthcoming publication in the first week of October by one of the big nine, the United States Supreme Court associate justice Clarence Thomas enhances my point. Thomas was appointed to fill the vacancy left by Thurgood Marshall, an appointment that undercuts by several degrees the notion that George Herbert Walker Bush was not flipping the bird to moderates and liberals. Given the body of remarkable decisions thought out with such precision by Marshall, Thomas really is a lightweight, way out of his class. Even one of his brethren, Mr. Justice Scalia, when asked what he thought of Thomas, pointedly circumnavigated his ear with an extended index finger, a gesture well understood to mean "a nut case."

But I digress because this is not intended as a rant against the current United States Supreme Court (although it could support a rant or two), rather a rant against he or she who renders judgements of another sort. You might call it IC, the Inner Critic.

The judge who tells you an idea of yours sucks

The judge who asks you what qualifies you to have a horse in this race

The judge who wants to know where you learned to:
a--write
b--draw
c--sculpt
d--take photos
e--compose music
f--act
g--etc
h--all of the above

In some courtrooms where the defendant becomes obstreperous, the judge admonishes, then has the defendant removed to a sound-proof room to view the proceedings via closed-circuit television (which doesn't always seem so Draconian because we can visualize said defendant inveighing against the tv set, and what the hey, who among us hasn't done that from time to time without a judge?).

My modest proposal here is that we reverse the process and send the judge packing. Not Judge Thomas, although that is always tempting. Not Lance Ito, because his O.J. performance didn't really do him much good, and definitely not Judge Judy, because I believe she still works the networks during off hours. I mean the inner critic, the one who gets his or her jollies by shooting down our work. There, in Ibsen-onian terms, is the true Enemy of the People.

Turn off the judge. Stop thinking. Get into the project and if it doesn't seem to be working, get farther into it.
I was checking out some links Lori provided for Navajo potters and darned if the stories associated with these splendid craftspersons didn't involve a great deal of trial and error with glazes, clays in general, slip, and firing techniques. I suppose there were occasional sour comments from husbands who were not too happy about what their supper was served on--"You expect me to eat off that! " --but by and large the results were stunning and yet more than one of the potters noted a respect for traditional patterns and ceremonial uses that have no meaning to us but are nevertheless occasions of beauty.

So let's hear it for the Super Ego. Fuera!

2 comments:

John Eaton said...

Rock on, Shelly.

Red carnations and sandpipers all around,

John

Lori Witzel said...

My first step: I've hidden Their black robes. (They are Legion, of course.)

(Thanks for the reference, BTW!)