Too small for the world, too big for the pond

Whenever I see or read something that's been exhibited, I use myself as the Litmus test: is it something I couldn't do? Something in all my years I've never done? Is it so good I stand mesmerised before it and marvel at how talented people are? It happens enough to make me proud of my species, but ... what if it is something so sub par, grotesquely unoriginal and so painfully average I am embarrassed for whose-ever cock got sucked into sponsoring it?

It breaks my heart every single time I see what sorts of products win contests, and not just popularity contests. I’ve recently, two or so days ago, won a minute voucher for a shop, which inspired me to go and try for all different kinds of competitions and games, mostly literary and photography… Drej also got into the exhibition selection with one of her photographs, which gave me courage to come out of my shell even more. I never got even close back in the day when I really tried. Maybe, after all this time, I’m better at what I do, I'm good enough?

Then I started checking out what competitions and invitations circle or have just expired around these parts... I saw what sort of things get into the winners circles.

And I started to cry.

Never in a thousand years do I stand a chance to get included with the things I try to do. I am not even talented enough to understand HOW. HOW?? I can’t stop crying. Forget quality of the product. Forget originality ENTIRELY. Forget what it takes to achieve the result. Forget any kind of rules, education or conscious effort. Forget superiority aimed at and above average achieved. That is for deluded snobs.

And I KNOW that I live in a pond where the willingness to create alone is laudable, I know that. Thank the muses someone is creating something. But the things that get exhibited as ‘critics’ choice’ in the end?

Crying still. I’ve watched a dozen puppies howling videos and had coffee and I’m crying still. I feel like one of those mothers who rather murders her baby rather than expose it to the hopeless world – I am considering murdering my camera with my pen and bury them both.

You can write the most original, witty, cool short story and you will lose to a housewife writing about her dog in a language fit for someone with a primary school education. You can draw an elegant, expressive think piece and you will lose to a schoolgirl sketching a baaaaad copy of a portrait of Angelina Jolie. You can choose your best photo of the last 30 years of perfecting your style to come close to your biggest idols, and you will lose to a photo of a hot girl in a nightie kissing a horse or a church hill in morning mist…

I stand not a chance in a thousand years. I know that now, and it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart. It breaks my heart.