Criticism and Compliments

Criticism and Compliments

This is an essay for artists and creative to read in regards to receiving both criticism and compliments.
A criticism is a compliment as much as a compliment is a criticism; they are not two sides of the same coin, but one side only.
Imagine that you are at a performance. You are completely inspired and blown away but what you just saw. You meet the performer after the show to tell them how inspiring the performance was. But after you talk to them, you wished you hadn’t. You feel like maybe you should have just shaken their hand and said, “Thanks, I loved the show!” and left it at that. How did you manage to piss her off by telling her how great she was?

Working the backline on different performance stages for a handful of years provided me with alot of opportunity to meet some of my idols, and shake their hands. I also met performers that I had never heard of, whom I instantly became a fan of. I can sleep better at night knowing that they probably won’t remember me when I meet them the next time, so even if I made an ass out of myself, I might get another opportunity so save face.
I made a complete ass out of myself to Henry Rollins the first time I met him. I sat there at the end of the table studying him while he typed on his laptop, pretending to be reading a magazine. He kept looking over at me, catching me staring at him, probably wondering what I was staring at, and eventually moved to another table to work, because obviously his concentration was being affected. After a mind-blowing performance, I was completely awe-struck, and while I was humping gear into the back of the truck, I put my hand on his shoulder and said enthusiastically “Great show, man!!” He was already talking to someone, and I was interrupting. He didn’t even bother to look at me and say thank you, and I realized that putting my hand on his shoulder was also the wrong thing to do, and that wasting his time with any more complimentary crap might get me the kind of attention that I DIDN’T want: like a black eye.
At the time I couldn’t understand his reaction, and I thought to myself, ‘What an asshole!”
As it turns out the next time I would meet Rollins, I tried a different approach. I talked to him as an equal, and I ended up hanging out with him on Robson Street for a few hours, talking about everything from why he fired his band members to the current actress he was dating and what a pain in the ass she was.
My original point is that a compliment is a criticism and a criticism is a compliment. I have never once been 100% satisfied with any one performance I have ever been a part of, be it my own or someone else’s show. Maybe I am a perfectionist, maybe I set unrealistic expectations for myself, but I have had countless performances where I am completely disgusted with myself over some aspect that did not go as well as I’d hoped for. One of my recent performances in fact, I could not hear my voice correctly due to a monitoring problem, and I was singing the first four songs just slightly out of key depending on where I was standing on the stage. I knew this while I was suffering it in the moment, but also knew that there was very little I could do about it. I felt totally helpless, and I had to switch into warrior mode just to live through it. So how do you think I felt when someone came up to me after a show that I was disgusted with, to compliment my voice?
I was immediately defensive. What I wanted to say, was:
“What the fuck do YOU know? The first four songs were completely out of key, I was dehydrated, my voice sounded like shit, and I’m sure everyone knows that except you obviously. Or maybe you DO know that and you feel sorry for me, so you are coming over here to patronize me.”
A close friend of mine taught me a long time ago that the best response to a compliment or a criticism is to be short and sweet, and thankful.
“Oh thank you! Thank you very much!” and that is exactly what I said to her, and I continued packing up the equipment. Even if someone comes up to me and says,
“Your show was great except for your singing, which I thought really sucked.”I would still say,
“Oh, thank you! Thank you very much!”
Am I being dishonest? What am I thankful for? I am thankful for the fact that the experience meant something to you, good or bad, and that it meant so much to you that you felt the need to confront me.
If you hated it, and absolutely needed to tell me that, it also means that you liked it, that you got something from it, that you were moved by it, that it affected you to the point of being angered by it.
Of course your opinion is valid. But ss much as all opinions are valid, so by their very nature are they invalid. Even my own opinion that my voice sounded like shit is as invalid as it is valid. I am not talking philosophic; it is common knowledge that one mans garbage is another mans treasure.
What I might consider to be my Holy Grail, is a pile of shit to you!
Because I am as much a part of my performance as much as I am separated from it I will experience it through my own filters and you will see and experience things through your filters, and your previous experiences. You will inevitably notice things that I do not, you will hear things that I will never be able to hear, even if I provide everything there is to hear. So why should I let one single opinion, right or wrong affect my ability, my self-esteem, how I conduct my creative process? Why does one negative or positive voice dominate over an entire choir of equal voices? I like to pretend that 90% of the people who heard my terrible singing did not notice, and felt uplifted and moved by the experience. But in my heart, my true opinion is that it sucked, and that really if those 90% had a clue, they would also know it sucked. Who am I going to be inclined to listen to and believe: the people who tell me they loved it, or the one cynical asshole that came up afterwards and told me he liked everything except for the singing? The answer to that is obvious. I might even go as far as to trust his opinion the next time, over everyone else’s opinion, because he was right on the money the last time round. I might look at him as being more in touch, more accurate, more enlightened over everyone else, because his opinion reflects my own insecurities. All he has to do is luck out a few times in a row by naming the inherent weaknesses and all of the sudden I grant him more power than everyone else. I might even deliberately invite him to more shows, just so that I can have a single valid opinion, amongst a sea of idiots. To think that he can be right or wrong in the first place, or to think that his opinion is more important than my own, or her own, or that guy over there in the corner, is completely ludicrous.
Likewise for the people that appear to “get it”. I know these people “get it” because they cheer when I feel like cheering. When I get lost in the performance and something magical happens, there they are screaming their heads off, and that is exactly how I feel like inside too. Sure, compliments feel a lot better; compliments are the things that we as artists live for! We all want to be “understood”, viewed as “brilliant”. It’s no secret, and you are a fool to think that other artists don’t know that about you too. But a compliment is just as meaningless as a criticism.
I remember a specific event where I approached a musician that I am consistently stunned by, and said:
“Oh man!!! That point during the solo of the second song where you were just going off---you remember that?”
“Yeah, yeah, I think so…”
“It was like you were doing something crazy with the feedback and the harmonics, and it was like a bolt of lighting hitting the top of my head---you remember that??”
“Um… the second song, right?”
“Yeah, yeah—or maybe it was the third song...anyways, it just ROCKED!!”
“Thanks, man!! Glad you liked it!”
And then I walk away feeling really great about the intimate connection I just had with my hero, and he walks away wondering what the fuck I was talking about with bolts of lightening, and feeling even more disconnected from the worst performance he has ever given.

Criticism

Usually when I don’t “get” something, it is not because it sucks, or it isn’t translated clear enough. It is either because I am blocked in that particular area due to previous negative experiences that I’ve had, or, like algebra, it is something totally new to me that I have no previous experience to relate it to, and I cannot grasp on to it. Ultimately in both scenarios, I simply don’t know how to experience it. I have in the very least enough self-knowledge now, to recognize this, give it the benefit of the doubt, and simply admit that I don’t get it.
I spent how many years staring at abstract painting, trying to figure out what the hell the big deal was about a red dot painted on a purple triangle, until one day when something finally clicked with me, and I instantly humbled.
Imagine the embarrassment and shame I would feel if I had spent those years in the dark shooting my mouth off over how invalid and pointless abstract painting is. Now, I am perfectly okay to accept the fact that there is art out there that is beyond my perception, that is too advanced for my puny little brain, art that I may not ever get until that one day when something clicks, if that day ever comes. Isn’t it better then to shut my mouth and say nothing when I don’t get it, then to run my mouth over how much I think it sucks in case I’m wrong? Is there a right and wrong? You can certainly argue that you believe something sucks due to the fact that you completely understand it, it has no mystery or allure, there is nothing new being said, there is no evidence of any kind of hard work present, in fact you in your expertise can make direct connections as to where you’ve seen it done better by someone else. Over and over in fact, and that this song, this book, this painting, this gown, this lyric, this page layout, is nothing but ignorant plagiarism. But you know what? You’re still just as wrong as you are right.
When a close friend of mine criticized one of my songs, it became immediately apparent to me that she does not have the capacity of feeling to understand it. This is a person who fears love, bails out of relationships when things get too intimate, ultimately someone who cannot handle love, so how on earth is she going to understand a song about love? Because I see her as blocked in that place in general, I don’t think that she gives herself permission to let herself feel those kinds of emotions and what she does feel makes her VERY uncomfortable, which might explains why she insists on hitting the “skip” button on her CD player when that song comes on.
I remember female friends of mine describing to me how heavy metal music puts them on edge, and makes them snap at people, get really angry and make them feel generally irritable and unpleasant. It still makes me laugh to think about that to this day, because whether those female friend of mine understand what is really happening or not, they are reacting to the music, and the music is affecting them in a drastic way, yet they do not know how to properly handle the stimulus. I have been a heavy metal fan since I was 2 years old and listening to Kiss’ “Destroyer” at my grandmothers’ house. I have always found a certain kind of peace, sanity, calmness, healing, and tremendous release in listing to angry, testosteronated music. The angrier and the more pissed off it is, the better. I can also understand where these girls are coming from however, because when I listen to Shania Twain, I get the same effect: irritation. I want to go out and smash things. I want to cause deliberate pain to small animals when I listen to anything that even resembles Country music. It is still only one opinion that country music is the most derivative, simplistic, formulaic, cheesy and predictable form of music that there is. That it lacks any kind of substance, and only reflects the ideals of a redneck is pretty much my honest opinion. I can however look beyond that, and see that maybe in the right circumstances, in the right environment, at the right time, Country music might resonate with me and maybe I might change my mind.
For example, if I was at a summer barn dance in Sweden, surrounded by a bunch of hot, horny country girls, who want to hold me close to their cleavage and teach me how to two-step, I might actually get into it!! It might forever change my opinion about country music, due to the fact that every time I listen to country music now, I am reminded of the that summer orgy I had in Sweden, waking up in a hay field full of partially naked Country Crock!!

Half-hearted compliments

It is a friend of mine that I will relate to you that opened my mind up to this new reality of compliments and criticisms. Through his example, I realized that allowing any one person to have special privileges to criticize or compliment my work is not being fair to the work, or myself. Understand, he knows that I respect his judgment, he knows that I allow and accept whatever he says to be more valid than some guy standing in the corner that I do not know, and like the person in the previous example, I used to give his opinion a certain kind of authority over other opinions because of his dedication to telling the truth as he sees it. Well, after showing him some of my recent accomplishments, swallowing a lot of criticism, and only receiving a few half-hearted compliments, I had a bit of an awakening. In my own paranoia, I couldn’t help but wonder if his opinions were deliberately designed to undermine my accomplishments, to intentionally destroy any proud feelings I might have towards those accomplishments. It was an intuition that had no logic behind it: he has told me in the past that he would like to see me succeed at what I do best, that he believes in my talent, and the work that I put into my “Ivory Towers.” Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I fought against my new, ridiculous intuition, but why did he seem so eager and determined to crash a wrecking ball into my ivory towers of accomplishment? It is too easy and too simple to say in a pitched whiny voice:
“Oh, He’s just jealous.”
Whether that is true or not, to simply default to that train of thought is a cheap oversimplification. Because I allow him special privilege to take shots at my hard work, does he feel like I expect that from him, and will not respect anything else? Or do I come across as being so overconfident, cocky, and arrogant that I challenge his wrecking ball to even dent the front door? Is that how I read?
If my tower of so-called perfection is strong enough to withstand my own relentless eye for detail, then it should certainly be strong enough to stand up to his. What message am I sending him that is being so drastically misinterpreted for him to think that the only way I will respect his opinion to be true, is if he trashes my work?
Do I appreciate having things that to me are mysterious and beautiful be seen in oversimplifications, and painted (almost in a mocking tone) with such a broad brush of generality?
My immediate defense that I can sleep with at night is a simple mirror of his reflection on one side, and my own on the opposite side. This person who stands before me and my art with his sharpened, bitter tongue, his cynical opinions and his so called experience—where are the ivory towers of his creation? Where, (besides in his mockery) are his true feelings being put on display for the world to see? I mean, isn’t it the ultimate trick of the cynic to convince us all that he knows more, and that his version of the truth is the only worthwhile reflection? Isn’t the cynic ultimately afraid to leave his own precious eggs alone in the nest unattended, for all and any wildlife to eat and molest? I am willing to bet, that the person who stands before you running his mouth over how much you suck because of this reason and that reason does in fact have an ivory tower of his own creation: In his head.
It is hidden away so far below the surface that no one and nothing will ever see it’s natural brilliance accept for one single set of eyes that will forever stare at it: his own.
What a coward to not put his heart on display for the world to see, yet he can look into yours and find every flaw. How lazy is it to not to put the work in, not to suffer and experience the setbacks, the hurdles, the inconsistencies, the difficult decisions to make for his own and others’ benefit.

And what a fool I have been to let his compliments and his criticisms affect me so deeply!

The truth can never be completed, a compliment and a criticism are only ever one side of a pocket full of coins.

Shawn Dean
©2005