cary's response nails a great deal of the challenge... what is this business of self-acceptance? what is the pursuit of perfection, anyway? what is "good enough" and is it a horrific compromise to avoid self-destruction, or does accepting 'good enough"create a slippery slope towards ennui and aesthetic and emotional lifelessness.......

The testing scores tell me that I am a genius, with an IQ that staggers some, but not my late brother, who tested at over 200, or my wife, whose IQ tested a few points higher than me. I have four degrees from two of this country's most staggeringly competitive schools, earned in a total of just under seven years of direct study. And, I have the grace to be active in a profession that I care about, am good at, and can succeed with moderate success at. But - I'm not Frank lloyd Wright, my name is not plastered on Time magazine, I was not a "contenda" for the infill of the 9/11 site, and the last publication that my work was in is an obscure professional journal that few read and fewer take seriously. I am sober, now, I have spent enough time in a therapist's office to resolve many of the issues surrounding the rampant sexual abuse that I sustained in the drug and alchohol saturated enviornment of my intellectually snobbish, utterly dysfunctional parents' home.

For me, the challenge has been to accept me, to deal with the chatter of different negating voices, to listen to the fear behind each voice that speaks to "not being good enough" and understand that, frequently, that voice speaks from a position of logic and reason, borne out of a lousy childhood. By listening to the self-negation gently and caringly, rather than trying to supress it, i can process it - and move on, gently, with a wry awareness of my own humanity. the minute I supress or challenge the voice of self-negation, that part of me fights back, sabotages, undermines, wants a drink..... whatever. But, with some self-care, some selfawareness, I can embrace, rather than hammer at, my selfdoubt and self-negation, and move through it.

So, by now, I know that I can enjoy my profession. I am profoundly lucky. yet, it does not address all of my creative wishes, so i use photography and fine art as other releases, while recognizing that I will not be either Ansel Adams or henri Matisse, either. The issue is whether participating in those creative tasks brings me pleasure. In the moment. for the moment. when they do, when I can share them with kindred spirits, then that is enough.

and, for the me that enjoys, in the moment, the activities that my brain seems intuitively hardwired for, I find that it is the learning that is the most exciting.... improving my compositional skills, assessing the quality of space three years after completion of a building that I have designed..... and that learning, that love of the excitement of discovery, is the antithesis of that prior search for perfection. Thus, in some odd Buddhist sense, the greatest light becomes present when exploring the thickest darkness.

To that end, I have found that therapy that focuses on positive self-awareness is far more effective than classic talk therapy, and to that end, suggest working with a therapist that knows and understands the Internal Family systems model and/or EMDR, may help. Issues of repetitive muscle injury with music can be addressed with some use of Feldencrais techniques. and yep, I now work out three times a week, thus substantiating the concept that my mind and body are actually rather - well - interconnected.