America's Inner Critic

I had a conversation with a friend last week who confessed he was “trying not to succumb to despair.” I encouraged him as best I could - after all I’ve heard some version of this sentiment from most of my circle for most of the past year. We’re all telling ourselves the same story.

A little over two years ago I wrote a book called DeConstructing Criticism (DeCon). It was geared towards artists and the struggles they encounter in the process of creation. However I soon discovered that there was a universality to its message that went beyond art. The most resonant chapter speaks about our Inner Critic:

Our Inner Critic is in charge of the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves. It is honed through our experiences, integrates our influences and refines itself as we age. We are in constant conversation with it. As such, it often functions as our biggest critic.

The Inner Critic manifests in how and what we think about ourselves, a subconscious I Am. Choose your descriptive.

I am:

• beautiful

• not enough

• the best

• failing

• learning

• hopeful

• the worst

• trying

In the pages of the book I advised the reader to be aware of the story their Inner Critic was feeding them in order to make adjustments that would produce their truest work.

But what do we do when that story is changing?
What do we do when that story is a lie?

In the past year, and arguably long before then, we have witnessed a radical shift of America’s I Am. Consider the following passages, competing rhetoric from two Republican presidents.

First, Reagan’s farewell speech:

“I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it, and see it still.”

Now, 47’s inauguration address:

We now have a government that cannot manage even a simple crisis at home while, at the same time, stumbling into a continuing catalogue of catastrophic events abroad. It fails to protect our magnificent, law-abiding American citizens but provides sanctuary and protection for dangerous criminals, many from prisons and mental institutions, that have illegally entered our country from all over the world. We have a government that has given unlimited funding to the defense of foreign borders but refuses to defend American borders or, more importantly, its own people.

Two versions of the story America tells itself about itself. One focuses on strength, pride and possibility while the other finds fear, flaws and shortcomings.

Which version are we meant to believe?

America has always been at war with itself, from Wall Street vs Main Street and Church vs State to when does life begin. An aspirational cha-cha from hopefulness to failure and back again: Tea Party, Reconstruction, Obama, Tea Party, rinse, repeat. Still we strive, holding fast to the belief that this is the greatest nation in the history of the world.

But beneath our feet we can feel that story shifting.

The current administration puts forth a vision of a nation that can only be sustained through blind loyalty. An America omnipotent and infallible, yet also (somehow) the righteously misunderstood victim of the world.

Why is a great nation suddenly so fragile so as to reject criticism altogether?
And what are we, its citizens, meant to take from this example?

In writer world, we have a saying: “kill your darlings.” It refers to when you fall deeply in love with an idea or some “thing” you’ve created, but you evolve and that darling thing does not. It simply doesn’t fit anymore.

Think of your Darling as a beautiful weed. Your attachment to it is preventing your garden from thriving.

What is America’s Darling?
What are the outdated ideas that need to be weeded out?
What is the new story America must tell itself about itself in order to thrive again?

WARNING: Your Inner Critic is a sensitive organism that may resist any attempt to change it!

This is no time to succumb to despair.
Stories can change.
In fact, they’re meant to.
As we evolve, so too must America.
From the root this time.