Delusional: “Cultivation of Constant Doubt” [Chapter II]

Written by Andi Bazaar, Gregory O’Connor Jr, Seth Gryffenberg, Benjamin Schenkkan Joseph, Clayton Euridicé Freimann Schofield, Emir Ash-Shiddiq Tendean

“Everyone wants to criticise someone who is taking more action than they are, they do it to deflect their own insecurities and self-doubt. Don’t let stigma of mental health create self-doubt and shame. Your condition is not a sign of personal weakness, seek counseling and support from others to help you gain self-esteem and overcome destructive self-judgment.”

Been meaning to do an interlude for “The Making Of: Delusional” on the cult of efficiency in creative writing because I think about this stuff, could probably apply to other creatives but I’m not an author or professional writer.

“Delusional” (Chapter 1–2) it took me about 4 months to finish the journal which that will became my first debut in mid-2024. I spent a lot of that time beating myself-up that I wrote too slowly to ever be a “real writer.” I could never be a professional author unless I did more, worked harder and got organized.

This included: daily routines, productivity, time-management, outlines, post-its, color-coded everything, the right notebooks, the right pens, the right computer. I beat myself up that I (didn’t know everything about the story before I wrote it.)

I tried to be efficient, I really did and I still ended up with ton of drafts. I was never going to be a real writer or author, I was a flake because I needed help! When I read the how to write books, a lightbulb would go off in my head. I could follow this blueprint and write faster (efficiency!)

I followed the blueprint or tried and then I veered off, way off and was frustrated over and over again. Why, I thought:

• “is my brain so chaotic?”
• “why can’t i outline before i start writing?”
• “isn’t that a better way?”

PART. 1 — “DAMAGE NEVER EXISTED”

Everybody says so, what is wrong with me? There’s nothing wrong with me, there’s nothing wrong with you if you write like I do. The biggest obstacle isn’t that the writing is slow, it’s being frustrated that the writing is slow. It’s being angry at yourself for not pumping out those stories every few months, a year.

I am faster at writing articles, but not because my process is more efficient. I’m getting more experienced with each book and I stopped beating myself up about how my brain works, I’m not an efficient writer so “why did I spend all these years beating myself up about it?”

I’m convinced this is cultural, I grew up in the United States in a middle class chaotic-family, a latchkey kid because my parents always worked. We moved around a lot so school was my stability, I went to 4 different schools in 10 years.

I loved school, I knew if I did certain things a certain way if I followed the directions I would get good grades and I would be rewarded for finishing something in the time allotted. It was an eye-opener when I first saw the educator “Sir Ken Robinson’s Ted Talk on Changing Educational Paradigms.”

He talks about why schools developed the way they did, schools for people like me and my parents and public schools for all also developed partly as a product of the industrial age and its need for workers who would later be in the factories.

School buildings often looked kind of like factories, they have regulated hours. A bell or gong signals the changing of shifts, there’s a roll call of attendance (punching in). The entire environment of a school is a factory and factories were all about efficiency.

We kids were being trained to value certain ways of working, everything around us proved this. It was very rare for a class to let us experiment, make mistakes, be chaotic. That kind of thing is hard to measure and assess and grade, it isn’t valued.

The first things that cut from school budgets are the arts, there’s a reason for that. The arts don’t fit well in factories, factories aren’t creative. So here I was, a product of the U.S. public school system who had mastered the system in my way. I was praised for it!

By the time I went to university, those values of productivity and efficiency were already ingrained in me. That’s where the frustration and anger at myself came from when I did creative work. Intellectually, I knew creative work does not have the same values as efficiency.

“A book is a product, right? So authors are human factories but we aren’t?”

We’re humans and that means we’re creative beings, when we create a piece of art and all books no matter genre, are that we have to give ourselves permission to be inefficient. The act of creating a story isn’t the same as manufacturing a car, if you follow the directions exactly you won’t necessarily produce the best result. It might be better to write and ponder and go on walks and play with the kids and write and at some point, you have a book. It’s terrifically hard work, it calls for more self-motivation and discipline than a factory worker but it doesn’t have to be efficient. So stop beating yourself up if you aren’t because the chaos and your inefficient self, that’s the artist in you.

PART. 2 — “ACCEPTANCE ENFORCE THE OPPOSITE”

Note: “Remember you don’t know everything that goes on in people’s lives, everyone struggles and deals with things. Treating people with kindness is so important especially these days with social media, it makes things worse in a way because people will judge you without really knowing you.”

Social media is exhausting because you’re constantly being seen and advertised to as a type of person, makes you judge things that “aren’t your vibe,” even if you enjoy that thing. If you’re about mental health, peace and networking keep that same energy with everyone I notice a lot of people false advertise behind a “brand, movement or platform.” — when in reality you discriminate and judge who you help based on their social media following and social status.

People can see your attitude on social media based on your tweet, don’t blame them and you should ask yourself before you give a judge to other people:

“Are you good enough, you are not and you are sick. Fix yourself!”

INTRODUCTION):

“About 100/10 of this blog is available for free.”

Look, you’re probably wondering “what the fuck am i doing on this page?” — ya I know, I’m wondering the same thing. Nobody wanted this page or article here, it just kinda happened so let’s get this over with.

• I’m an independent amateur writer, what that means is that I’m not under contract at: a magazine, newspaper, any publisher.
• I’m not beholden to some overbearing editor/publisher.
• I’m certainly not whoring myself out to some big media conglomerate, this means I don’t have to sell ads or beg for airtime.
• It means I can’t get cancelled or censored or intimidated out of saying what needs to be said, I don’t have to pitch a dozen article ideas just to get a thousand words printed somewhere where people will read it.
• I write stuff, you read it and it’s that simple.

“Bring your martial issues to social media, social media people use you for vibes, laughs and entertainment. People that have done worse things than you judge you and tongue lash you and your family.”

“How exactly have you solved your marital problems?”

• social media is not a courtroom
• you are not the judge
• you are not the prosecutor
• you are not holy above others
• train and tame your ego for your benefit and others

Twitter is not a good space for parents like me. Moms and Dads are not given grace on this app when it comes to be frustrated, tired or just over parenting and I am speaking as someone who didn’t give grace to the parents on here at one point.

This is why parents shouldn’t share the decisions they make with a bunch of strangers who probably don’t have kids. They should be able to share on their own space without being jumped on, we can share anything else freely but they shouldn’t? — “That’s not fair.”

I would look towards making my account private so the audience is only people I know won’t judge me, but if you’re going to go public with your decisions people are going to feel entitled to their opinions on those decisions. Fair or not, that’s the reality of social media and you seemed unhappy about it but tone is difficult to judge on social media.

“Social media is a dark place, don’t let people who don’t know anything about you behind a screen judge you.”

I understand that forgiveness and grace can mean letting someone off the hook, can signal acceptance of behavior that is or should be unacceptable but cancel culture scares the shit out of me.

“How do we account for mistakes and misunderstandings also growth, are all flaws irredeemable?”

Something I see even in some of my personal relationships is a trend towards simplification, coming up with one-dimensional explanations for the things we don’t like. Sometimes those explanations may be valid, but in general I think humans are more complicated than that. It is also crucial to distinguish between mistakes and abuse, sometimes people do abusive things. Misuse power, harming others — repeatedly despite feedback, creating a pattern that constitutes abuse. Then they complain that everyone “makes mistakes.”

Everyone makes mistakes, not everyone abuses.

Abusers are really interested in real accountability — abuse is about not being accountable. It is premised on it. So, how do you get people to be accountable about *not* being accountable? This is where so-called “cancelling,” unacceptable actions having consequences comes in and has a legitimate place. IMO the equation isn’t, which flaws are reedemable but how often are people sincerely trying to redeem, not just manage reputation?

• “cancelling” is a response to mistakes without accountability.
• “forgiveness” without accountability is just a pass amd all of us make mistakes.

When we make mistakes repeatedly, especially when others have called us in or out on it and we are aware of the harm we are causing that is a pattern: “abuse.” Some of you are defending people for their “mistakes” when what they’re guilty of is abuse.

“I didn’t know” as the go-to defense of white nonsense, smh… this is why schools or institutions need policies — so we can say “you were responsible for knowing!”

It’s a double edge sword, cancel culture doesn’t leave much room for the complexity of human nature but also some “flaws” are irredeemable — especially if someone’s flaw is leading to the harm of others mentally or physically. Outside the extremes, there’s some gray area to cancel culture that needs to discussed constructively. but I will admit, most celebs who get canceled seem to end up being just fine a few months or year done the road. So then there’s a question of if people actually get “canceled.”

I wrote a new flash called “Cancel Culture” because I’m wondering these things too. It’s like the obverse of Ben Franklin’s concept of errata (printer vocabulary, but basically mistakes are inevitable and recoverable, you learn from them). This is something I’ve given a lot of thought to as well like when people dig things up from x-amount of years ago, it’s one thing to be a current shitty person and it’s another to have a history of bad behavior/interactions and learn from them, develop also change.

All I can do is grow from that and listen to the explanations I am given, because here’s the thing when you are literally talking about people dying and being harmed in many tangible ways, they don’t have to be gentle with their frustration and their criticism they literally may not have the time for that. I became aware of police violence when Mike Brown and Freddie Gray died and I did nothing but be aware of it. I thought now that it was out, it would take care of itself as if it was newly discovered.

The only tangible thing I did was decide that I couldn’t become a cop, because there was no fixing this from the inside and on top of that I considered myself more enlightened because I was aware but what if we had actually done something meaningful 5 years ago? In short if I get called out, I probably need it and yes my first response is always to be defensive but I know that now, so at least I can take a step back and reflect then step forward and say “you’re right, I was wrong and I’m still learning.”

“I guess for me it’s about patterns and ownership.”

Last year I had an upsetting interaction with an author who had been “canceled” for an aggressive racist action but months later he didn’t apologize, instead doubling down. If we don’t grow, we don’t get to demand a free pass?

Examples of canceling going too far:

• people losing jobs over social media likes.
• high schoolers going through peers social.
• media to report instances of racism and compiling public lists.
• humus grill loses customers and its lease for old posts by owner’s 14 y/o daughter.

Eh, being canceled isn’t that bad. It’s been proven to be non-permanent, just gotta work hard to get right. I hate the acceptance of cancel culture, I agree with the 21st century expectation that we should accept nothing less than accountability and sincere acknowledgment but how the fuck do we expect people to learn if they’re not allowed to make a mistakes? People are so toxic.

Making a mistake is ok if they learn from from it when called out on it, when they exhibit a pattern of making the same mistakes again and again and won’t sincerely acknowledge it or hold themselves accountable it is a problem.

I don’t understand the recent thought process going on, it screams “accept everybody, but cancel everything.” — Everyone’s “feelings” must be preserved.

“How does a wave of acceptance also coincide with cancel culture?”

I watched the Social Delima last night on Netflix, I already knew a ton of what was in the documentary but something that was shown but not really talked about was self-censorship. In the doc, there is a teenage girl who posts a picture that doesn’t get a ton of likes, or even gets bullied about the picture. So she takes it down but let’s expand this — because that’s a case most people can relate to, how about something you’re against?

• How many people don’t post their true thoughts, feelings, etc. because of fear of acceptance in their social circles?
• How many people are self-censoring themselves to avoid cancel culture and the mob of social media?

Expand this even more, how many people have thoughts on a topic but won’t say them because they know they won’t get enough likes or engagement?

“Social media has become a disgusting place for free speech.”

Also, if you don’t understand why people believe differently than you or don’t see the same information as you, this is by design of social media. It is designed to pull people apart into their own bubbles. I know people like to dogpile on tweets when they aren’t aligned with the traditional Twitter-based values but I would like everyone to remember that you’ll just drive them to self-censor and dig further into their beliefs.

If you don’t understand how people could think differently from you, you haven’t been paying attention.

CLOSURE

If you’ve ever liked or shared an article of mine, if you’ve ever read something and thought, “holy-cow-turds, that’s dope as fuck!” — if something I’ve written has ever saved you from a headache, a divorce, or imminent death you can thank me later instead of consider throwing me some shit things I don’t know.

That’s all it is, just hit the shiny follow button and welcome to the club!

Some support actually can to feed me and make me write more my things, it allows me to keep doing what I do best and it keeps things simple. No middle man, no ugly ads, no bullshit just me yammering on and you reading and (hopefully) liking it.

PART. 3 — “SILENT PURITY BY SELF-DOUBT”

For today’s, I opens up about that uncomfortable topic of dealing with fears and insecurity as a human being.

I’m in Greece right now working on some new stuff, I knew that I wanted to write something to you this week but I didn’t know. If I should open up about this particular topic whenever I book a job, I go through my various stages of processing my accomplishment. It usually goes something like surprise then excitement then anxiety and finally gratitude.

The anxiety stage is that particular topic I was talking about, I doubt my own talent, dislike my physical-self and overall allow that insecurity to seep into my work which is honestly the worse thing that can happen. I recently spent weeks doing a similar thing in therapy with the key words being “am I too much.” — ADHD folks end up with so much self doubt and insecurity, it’s heartbreaking.

First of all, I really wanna talk about “Body Dysmorphia,” this thing really had me thinking I was everytime I post some pic on ig’s and I was a solid 215lbs of beef. I rarely open up or show vulnerability here is because of some nasty and mean ignorant comments. Having followers doesn’t mean you’re immune to insecurities, self doubt, mental health disorders, etc. We’re all human and we all struggle. Always chose to keep going. “Be kind or fuck off.”

Q’s:

“If anything having more followers would exacerbate any insecurities because you’re open to more criticism, people are weird and for some reason don’t know how to be kind to others.”

A’s:

“It really baffles me how people really jump at the chance to be cruel or mean to someone who’s never once even looked at them funny. Truly, sometimes it ok to read and just keep scrolling or block them if you don’t want to see the tweets you don’t have to engage and be weird mean.”

Q’s:

“Why do people just suck? Sorry people can’t just let others live their life in peace, just remember there are people out there who care about you and want you to succeed live your best life the way you want to, not how others want you to.”

A’s:

“Yeah exactly. I don’t get it.”

It’s ok to show vulnerability, because that makes you relatable. When you open up and talk about your every day struggles, that makes you real. Warmest hugs!

“What’s the difference between Self-doubt and Humility? Not a joke set up, really trying to figure out the difference.”

It depends on your definitions, but I would say one is a form of insecurity and the other a sign of strength. If you truly know yourself, you needn’t fear being wrong because being wrong brings learning. You don’t fear failure because it’s an opportunity for growth.

“Self-doubt” is a fixed mindset and rooted in insecurity, fear and often ends up being a barrier. “Humility” is a changed mindset and stems from curiosity and the ability to continue to be open, flexible, question, explore, learn or try new things and often ends up being a way forward.

“Self-doubt” means you’re not sure if you’re any good, even if you are. “Humility” means you may know you’re good, are always willing to get better but don’t assign being good as who you are as a human or to use it to be braggadocious or hold it over anyone else’s worth.

I would say that self-doubt lacks a greater perspective of self-achievement and what others are struggling with, where humility is grounded in the fuller perspective of the whole of one’s strengths and weaknesses.

Also, I can decribe “Humility” some kind of embracing the fact that I don’t have all the answers. “Self-doubt” is thinking there’s something wrong with me for not having all the answers. Meanwhile, self-doubt is an arrow inward — focusing on your personal capability. Humility is an understanding of the whole and is more about the perspective of how your capability fits into that.

I feel self-doubt as self-sabotage, as another voice in my head coming from me telling me I’m not good enough, maybe I shouldn’t be doing it. Humility is what I feel when I empower myself with pep talks like “work hard, you might not be there, but work will pay off.”

Self-doubt for me looks like writing to prove myself to someone (or not writing at all). Humility stems from confidence and feels like the freedom to play and create without *needing* others to give me the feedback I want to hear. Self doubt is “my worth is tied to my performance (and I’m going to fail).” Humility is something like “my worth has very little to do with this at all, and it doesn’t matter so much if I fail, but I get to try!”

It’s hard to not compare in a world saturated with images of people being happy and having everything, but it’s imperative you do. We’ve all got our inner compass that will guide us to where we need to be. That’s not my job as a coach to help you find that inner compass, I just want to give you that push when you feel like giving up or stuck. To remind you you aren’t alone in this journey, if I can overcome my traumas, my inner battles of self doubt and belief so can you!

There are a lot of factors that can disrupt your business, but self-doubt can sabotage it in a very personal way. You have to learn how to overcome self sabotage in a good way. I want to help folks overcome creative self doubt as it fucked me up for so long. Practical philosophies, spiritual nature and creative self-development (my main obsession), to live a fun and engaging life.

Man, if I was able to lie to myself as well as can maybe I could overcome crippling self doubt and imposter syndrome. Personally for the longest time, I’ve had trouble with social cues due to “Asperger’s Syndrome.” — Not to mention, I’ve dealt with a lot of heartbreak but introspection over time and keeping some goals in mind has helped me overcome my self-doubt.

I say find something that interests you that takes a certain level of discipline to master and practice it as much as you can. Maybe find an instrument to play and perfect that shit, that is something that can boost confidence and a good starting point. Today I’m out for a beautiful walk with my dog, feeling less than my best. “Anybody else out there have days where they feel on top of the world and then are suddenly overcome with self-doubt?”

• Don’t let stigma of mental health create self-doubt and shame.
• Your condition is not a sign of personal weakness, seek counseling and support from others to help you gain self-esteem and overcome destructive self-judgment.
• You can learn how to retrain your mindset so that it is not negatively self-centred and dominated by doubt, this guide is an accumulation of tactics I did to overcome my shyness and self-doubt.
• Believing in yourself is foundation for others to start believing in you.
• When you feel confident and project that confidence, people will naturally be drawn to you.
• When you believe in yourself, you can overcome self-doubt and have confidence to take action and get things done.

COMPLIMENT YOURSELF: “I am BRAVE, I am ENOUGH, I am WORTHY, I am TALENTED, I BELIEVE in myself and I know my POTENTIAL”

I haven’t been sharing much work online the past few months for many reasons burnout, self-doubt and insecurity but more importantly I’ve been restructuring my relationship with it to be a healthier and more sustainable one. Too many times our amazing ideas are crushed by the heels of our insecurities, lack of faith and self-doubt. Our seeds (ideas), remains dormant in our minds, never having the opportunity to blossom. Insecurities, self-doubt, what ifs, but I trust my self. I’m braver than before, I know I can do it with the best version of myself for now.

You can have humility without having self-doubt. “Self-doubt” you have a tendency to question your capabilities, my thoughts. In short, humility is growth mindset and self doubt is fixed mindset. I am firmly wedged in the latter but working real hard to relocate. I think I’m at that point after a few weeks of on and off feeling lots of insecurity, self-doubt and imposter syndrome where I can tap into what’s underneath (continuous background sadness) and be like “oh wow, so I can feel these things and not believe I’m a failure?”

It always feels so strange to pinpoint the story and emotionally detach from it, like finding out I’ve been wearing fake skin and taking it off and feeling the cold and the dampness in my real skin. Your body wants to do one thing, it wants to keep you alive. So, when you find yourself in a place where you’re comfortable your instinct is to stay there. The thing that keeps you comfortable is fear and fear can come in many forms like self doubt, insecurities and overthinking.

Everyone wants to criticise someone who is taking more action than they are, they do it to deflect their own insecurities and self-doubt. When you lack confidence, it invites fear, insecurity and self-doubt. You often avoid difficult goals and are more easily distracted about what could go wrong which often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You got to fight self-doubt and insecurity the same way you would go at your sibling when you felt they disrespected you. Can’t let it get the best of you no matter what, same principle just one’s meant to annoy the other’s meant to destroy. It’s so tough I know really but it gets better.

A SPECIAL THANKS TO:

Andi Bazaar (Writer)

Mark J. Levstein (Co-Editor)

Yevhn Gertz (Director of Photography)

dr Oliver Schofield, MD (Consulting)

dr Seth Gryffen, MD (Consulting/Co-writer)

dr Khaan, MD (Consulting)

Timothée Freimann schofield (Photographed)

Clayton Euridicé Schofield (Editor/Journalist/Co-writer)

Scott Wynné Schofield (Publicist)

Henrie Louis Friedrich (Analyst)

Jwan Höffler Conwall (Art Interior Design/Model)

Hugo-licharré Freimann (Ass Director)

Shot at GQ’s Studios by José Schenkkan and Benjamin Schenkkan Joseph (Co-writer)

In appearance by “Gregory O’Connor Jr” (Model/Co-writer)

Thanks to, Shawn McKenzie (Production Team) and Emir Ash-Shiddiq Tendean (Co-writer)

In collaboration with The Me: You Can’t See (TMYCSUK)