His Only Desire is Criticism
Canoes, Lake Mohegan NY.
Sometimes I post something and take it down a few hours later. It's not embarrassment, or changing my mind... it's realizing that the voice that was speaking wasn't my own. It was the Critical Parent.
Back in 1980, I saw a therapist for the first time. It was a year after Dad died of cancer, and Mom thought it would help.
The therapist taught me a model called Transactional Analysis (TA). I absorbed it fully, the way the music you heard at 14 remains your favorite forever (for the record: Michael Jackson Off the Wall, AC/DC Back in Black, and ELO Out of the Blue).
TA goes like this:
You have three aspects to your mind: The Parent, the Adult, and the Child. The Parent is split into two parts: The Critical Parent and the Nurturing Parent. When your mind is working poorly, the Critical Parent is in control, and the Adult doesn't shut him down, so the Child feels terrible.
When the Critical Parent takes over, he says, "...nobody practices 'photography' at an advanced level. They practice (a narrow style or they remain snapshot takers instead of true photographers)..." And once I notice his voice has supplanted my own, I try to be the Adult and shut him the fuck up.
The trick with the Critical Parent is this: He can't create anything. He says should and can't and is very concerned about judgment and doing things just-so. But he has no perspective to share. His only desire is criticism.
The Critical Parent is not the photographer. He can't make art. And he has no business telling me what kind of photography I must focus on to be good enough.