Something happens when you are surrounded by talented people. You are inspired to create, to design to share. So, you start to create. You design something. You build it, you share it, and it’s crap. But the need to feel that you’ve contributed is strong so you keep at it.
Eventually, you build something that you are truly proud of. It’s exactly what you wanted. You’ve worked at every detail, hoping you’ve left nothing out but knowing you probably have. Doesn’t matter, it’s yours and you love it. Well now you want to show it off so you invite all those talented people you know. The ones whose opinions you value and trust. The ones you really want to show off to and say *Look what I did!!* Now the panic hits. What if they hate it. They’ll find every imperfection. Now you wish you’d never invited them. Will they be honest, and do you want them to? Or do you want them to just tell you what you want to hear. You’ll never learn, improve, grow without honest feedback.
Now it begins to settle in that you’ll never be anywhere near as good as any one of them. You may have a smidge of talent but nothing that will make you stand out, be different. You’ll always be on the sidelines cheering someone else on. Nothing wrong with that, everyone needs a cheerleader. Who cheers on the cheerleader though? Does anyone ever see those folks on the sidelines, the ones who are invisible in the shadow of other’s talent?
A few may practice and work hard and become part of the talented few. The rest though, they slip into background. There when someone needs them but invisible the rest of the time. They wonder what would happen if they weren’t there to ask questions of anymore. Would you find a different source to answer your questions? Would you even notice they were gone? Yes, you’d notice but only from the inconvenience of having to go somewhere else to get your information or fix your problem. That’s a topic for another day though…
Some of my best friends have an incredible amount of talent. There is very little they can’t do. Whether it’s making skins, torturing tiny prims or building a house, these people are among the best designers in SL and the nicest people you’d ever want to meet. I’m proud to have them on my friends list, not because of *who* they are, but because of the type of people they are. I’ll always be there for them.I get so excited every time they show me something new they’ve done. They continue to amaze me with what they come up with. I’ll never be as good with photoshop or as talented a builder/scriptor/animator/poser but that’s ok. I’ll keep practicing mostly because I enjoy it. If it wasn’t fun I wouldn’t do it.So I’ll be the cheerleader. It’s what I’m good at. Besides, sometimes it’s good to be invisible. 
Tags: flickr, photoshop, second life, SecondLife, sl, the reach
This entry was posted
on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 9:47 am and is filed under Musings.
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