Note to Self: Ask for Things

 

Excellent questions from the mind of my ten-year-old

Although I rarely think of myself as a New Year’s resolution person, on December 31st I found myself overcome with the sudden urge to make a list of goals for the coming year (in the spirit of full disclosure, this impulse most definitely spawned from the socials of a certain favorite podcast host).  While resolutions feel stuffy and daunting, notes app goals in the form of dreams and desires are right up my alley. Completed in under ten minutes, the list I made was a good one and I stand by it. It was off the cuff, straight from the gut and felt authentic, specific to me, and most importantly, reasonably enjoyable.  Varying in feasibility, items range from the easy-peasy (going on more walks with Brian, hell yeah!) to the totally and hopelessly impossible (international show in Berlin??? What in the actual fuck am I doing to myself?)

 

Sample from my Notes app goals/dreams list

I realized shortly after the new year that in addition to these “problems”, the haste in which my list was made left it somewhat lacking. First of all, I left off that want to wear more skirts this year, and I plan to thrive at all of the skirtwearing once the temps here in Richmond rise above 26 degrees Fahrenheit. The second missing item is the real, honest-to-god challenge and is an inherent component in many of my self-inflicted tasks: I’m going to have to ask for things.

 

Like a lot of artists, I experience low-level dread when I have to ask for things professionally. From recommendation letters to studio visit invitations, artists have to ask for things all the time. Even as someone who has more often than not benefited from asking for things, I still experience discomfort. Asking can precede rejection (or worse, no response). But if rejection does come knocking, maybe it could lead somewhere interesting? What if we really risk something greater by not asking?  Remembering the words of a favorite professor now, our rejections don’t mean what we think they mean (of course, our successes don’t either). Is rejection in the art world kind of like dating, where the rejection says more about the rejector than the rejectee?

  

Something like an answer arrived via Substack on Sunday morning, a gift from the universe (aka algorithm).  The article that I stumbled across is written by Ajeya Cotra and is about math and the stable marriage (or matching) problem, a problem which I'd never heard of until that morning. Ultimately, it is about asking for things and the essay ended with this gem of wisdom:

 

....But I think the core dynamic in the proof of asker-optimality and askee-pessimality does apply to real life. If you only ever pick from offers you get, you never try anything unless someone out there already knew you and liked you enough that they took the trouble of coming to you. If you ask for stuff, you get to pick from among the entire universe of potential options theoretically available to you — and who knows, it might work out.

 

I don’t know how to wrap this up neatly, but I guess I am just floating within this moment of inspiration, aspiration and just the right amount of delusion and/or faith. As dark as world events have been lately, it’s nice to feel a teeny bit of hope for something, to feel as if math can substantiate magic, to exist briefly in this small moment where everything seems possible. A few of you will be hearing from me shortly.

xo

 

Fully blaming the stars for my writing 😊