Confronting the Censor
An exploration of the “nasty internal and eternal critic”
I woke up on a mission this Saturday. It was the first day in weeks that I had uninterrupted time to write and I had planned to take full advantage. I rolled out of bed around 6:30 a.m., lit a candle, and waited for sunlight to come streaking through the window. After my morning coffee and a light breakfast, I hopped in the car and headed to one of my favorite spots for writing — a little coffee shop down the road with outdoor seating and, most importantly, free refills.
I found a small table in the back corner of the outdoor patio and opened up my laptop. As soon as I sat down, I knew I was going to have a hard time finding inspiration. Most of the time, I like to show up to the page with an idea in hand. But lately, inspiration hasn’t found me, so I figured I’d meet it halfway.
Before I could even type a single word, an older gentleman dressed in a long black trench coat asked if he could sit across from me at my table. I looked up at him, a bit taken aback. There were dozens of open tables. Why would he want to sit here?
“Sure,” I said after thinking about it for a moment.
He removed his coat and sat down. I watched him as he leaned back in his chair and unfolded a newspaper.
“Who the hell still reads newspapers?” I thought. But he seemed pretty old — at least in his mid-70s — so I thought if anyone did it was guys like this. He was tall and thin with white slicked-back hair and jagged, wrinkly features. Honestly, he looked like a retired detective from the 1950s. I waited for him to light a cigarette, stare into the distance, and start telling me about some cold case that still haunted him. But he didn’t do any of that.
After a few minutes, I could feel him staring at me as if he had been waiting to speak to me the whole time. I kept looking at my laptop screen hoping he would look away but he never did. I gave into the magnetic stare and we locked eyes.
“What ya working on?” He asked with a half-smile, half-smirk.
“Just writing,” I said, still desperately searching for inspiration.
“What are you writing for?”
“Sometimes I write just to write, other times I write articles for my blog,” I said, not wanting to go into too much detail.
“Which one is it today?” he asked, still wearing the subtle smirk.
“The latter. But I’m struggling to come up with an idea to write about.”
“Explain it to me,” he said. “Maybe I can help.”
As briefly as I could, I explained what this blog was all about and one of the writing ideas I was considering. I expected he would likely be confused by what I was saying. I definitely did not expect him to react the way he did.
“That sounds like a waste of time,” he said. “Read me something you’ve written.”
I read him a few paragraphs from my last article.
“Are you really being serious?” He asked, launching into a tirade of questions. “You think you’re some kind of artist? It sounds like you have no idea what you even want to say. How many people even read what you write? You think you have something important to share with people? How old are you, 25? How do you expect to write anything worth reading if you can’t even decide what to write about?”
“I’m 27,” I said, visibly angry. “And I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
“Listen to me, kid,” he whispered and leaned in closer, “You’re wasting your damn time. This writing is absolutely useless. Nobody wants to hear from you and nobody in their right mind would read this nonsense. Go home and waste your life away like the rest of your lousy generation. Nobody from your TikTok-dancing, Instagram-influencing generation could ever write anything worthwhile. If I were you I wouldn’t show your work to anybody. You’ll live to regret it. Why don’t you read a novel — read any book — then read your own writing and you’ll see what I see: that you’re a sorry excuse for a writer.”
I was red with rage.
“Okay, a—hole,” I said. “Why don’t you go bother someone else? I didn’t ask for your senile tirade. Take your newspaper and your comically long coat and go collect Social Security benefits or something. Don’t you have great-grandkids to harass with this crap?”
He stood up slowly, chuckling to himself, and walked back into the cafe trench coat in hand.
I turned to the blank page on my laptop screen, still fuming and still unable to find words. I continued to wrestle with several ideas, but couldn’t get the old guy’s words out of my head. After a few minutes, a bird flew over my head and sat on the patio awning right above me. As I looked up, an enormous bird poop landed on my right shoulder.
“That’s it!” I thought. “I’m over this.” I got up, went to the bathroom to clean my shirt, and quickly went home, giving up my writing goals for the day.
By now you’re probably thinking, there’s no way this is a true story — and you’re partially correct. Most of what you just read is fictional, except for the bird poop. That did happen — on one of my favorite shirts too!
Anyway, in the words of Neil Gaiman, “fiction is the lie that tells the truth.” Sure, this old-timey, detective-looking fellow wasn’t real, but his voice was. All those crazy things he said to me — those are phrases that have come from the voice in my head whenever I am beginning to work on anything challenging. If you’ve ever tried to embark on any big project, whether in the arts, in sports, or in business, I am certain you’ve encountered this voice, too. It’s the voice that makes you doubt yourself — that, more often than not, makes you throw in the towel before you even begin.
Filmmaker and Author, Julia Cameron, has a great name for this voice. In her book, the Artist’s Way, she calls it the Censor, with a capital C. I’ll let her explain it:
“Even if we look like functioning artists to the world, we feel we never do enough and what we do isn’t right. We are victims of our own internalized perfectionist, a nasty internal and eternal critic, the Censor, who resides in our (left) brain and keeps up a constant stream of subversive remarks that are often disguised as the truth. The Censor says wonderful things like: ‘You call that writing? What a joke. You can’t even punctuate. If you haven’t done it by now, you never will. You can’t even spell. What makes you think you can be creative?’
Sounds like the old-timey detective-looking fellow, huh?
Author Steven Pressfield writes about his own version of the Censor. He calls it Resistance. According to Pressfield, Resistance is a mythical force with only one mission: to keep things as they are. In pursuit of its mission, Resistance does whatever it can to keep us from fulfilling our potential. That usually means sparking doubt, fear, and anxiety — and criticizing our work mercilessly until we give up.
It may sound harsh, but the Censor/Resistance is a powerful force. It’s what keeps so many people from actually doing what gives their lives purpose. It certainly has for me. For many years and again over the last few months, I’ve battled round after round with the Censor. I’ll admit I haven’t landed many punches. But I’m working on it.
Reading Cameron’s workbook, “The Artist’s Way” has helped a lot. I won’t go into too much detail in this essay, but she offers some powerful tips on circumventing this formidable foe and I highly recommend her book to anyone who is looking for — as the subtitle says — “a spiritual path to higher creativity.”
Exercising early in the morning has also helped. But in all honesty, what has helped the most is realizing that the Censor’s words aren’t true. Maybe they’re the words I expect from someone who reads my writing or sees my work. Maybe they’re the words I think people will say if they compare my work to other “more successful” writers. Maybe they’re the words of some bully who told me my work was stupid when I was in first grade. Either way, they’re not true — and also, how absurd that we still give weight to the opinion of a little first-grader! Sounds silly but we all probably do, at least subconsciously.
I don’t think anyone ever overcomes the Censor. Accomplished artists and athletes don’t have some superhuman ability that you are never capable of developing. What sets them apart is not talent, but the ability to work around their Censor and to work consistently over long periods of time. That last part — over long periods of time — is key. The Censor isn’t only trying to keep you from starting to work toward your goal. It’s going to show up every day that you show up, and try to make whatever you’ve built come to a screeching halt.
Working around the Censor requires a high level of discipline. The Censor is an impatient old grouch. Usually, if I sit and stare at the blank page long enough the Censor will get tired of pestering me and suddenly the ideas will start to pour in. But of course, I have to give myself the time and space to just sit and wait for the Censor to finish his tirade. Being disciplined about my schedule and allowing adequate time for me to sit with my Censor long enough for him to shut up is vital. If I’m working on a strict time crunch, the Censor usually gets louder. Also, the Censor is going to try to get me to abandon my plans before I even sit down in front of the page. Thankfully, the more I can push past the Censor and lean into the discomfort the more momentum I gain. In other words, the easier it gets to discredit and depower the Censor.
There’s so much I can say about the Censor — it’s such a fascinating and potent force of nature. But I think the first and most important step toward being able to work around it is to become aware of it, to define it, to explore its nature. What gives the Censor power? What am I doing throughout the day that makes its voice louder? Where did this voice come from? These are all questions that can help us understand and circumvent the Censor.
I guess I can only really pose questions. Like every artist and every person who ever tried anything worthwhile, I’m still in a heated battle with the Censor. So yeah, maybe that senile old-timey detective guy I met on Saturday wasn’t real, but I really did get pooped on by a bird. And I really did go home without writing anything. But you know what? A few days later, I came back and sat with my Censor until he left me alone for a little while. And I was finally able to throw these words down onto the page. I guess I’m learning to live with the old curmudgeon.
Anyway, I will leave you with a phrase I once heard Steven Pressfield say. I think it was something along the lines of: The greater the Resistance, the more crucial it is that you do whatever it is the Resistance is trying to keep you from doing.
May you find a way to work around your adversary. It’s your divine calling.
I love reading your work invite me to coffee next time