Feel like a complete prick why? Is it just because it seems egotistical and smug to say, "yeah, what I wrote is clever"? 'Cause if that's the reason, I've got another way of looking at it: it's something I call "sneaking up on yourself".
My first experience of it was when I bought a recording of performances made at a music convention I'd attended a few years earlier. I bought the tape, looked at the track list, noticed that none of my songs had been included, and set it aside to get around to listening to eventually. A few months after that, I finally got around to listening, and was enjoying one song in particular because of some really cool backing guitar. I started paying closer attention, realized I really liked what I was hearing, thought, "Wow, that's really good. I wish I could play like that! I should take notes on what this guy is doing," and only then started wondering who the uncredited guitarist was, and why I didn't remember this really cool guitar part from the day when it was recorded. Then I finally remembered where I had been standing when that song was performed: behind the singer, holding an electric guitar, doing "noodly stuff".
That was the first time I'd ever heard my own playing without perceiving it first through the "I know where the mistakes are", "is this good enough, is it really good enough?", and "I want this to be good" filters. It was the first time I'd ever had an honest reaction to my own playing. And despite the fact that telling the story feels like I'm being a smug braggart, the feeling at that moment of realizing that when I heard myself the same way I hear other guitarists I actually do like my own playing, was pretty damned nice.
Of course it was also combined with the cognitive dissonance of, "I just snuck up on myself," enough so that that's now how I describe that way of getting into that "listen honestly to myself because I forgot it was me" headspace.
(It's still hard for me to listen to myself that way when I know it's me. And even harder to read myself -- I don't write as much as you do, so it's harder for me to lose track of my own words when encountering them later, I think.)
So yeah, it does feel smug to say, "Fuck, I'm clever!" but what if that's the honest truth? (And obviously I think you're clever enough to keep getting into my QotD file.)
If that's not the reason reading your own cleverness makes you simultaneously embarrassed and feeling like a prick, then I've just wasted a few paragraphs sounding smug myself, but I'm interested in hearing why.
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My first experience of it was when I bought a recording of performances made at a music convention I'd attended a few years earlier. I bought the tape, looked at the track list, noticed that none of my songs had been included, and set it aside to get around to listening to eventually. A few months after that, I finally got around to listening, and was enjoying one song in particular because of some really cool backing guitar. I started paying closer attention, realized I really liked what I was hearing, thought, "Wow, that's really good. I wish I could play like that! I should take notes on what this guy is doing," and only then started wondering who the uncredited guitarist was, and why I didn't remember this really cool guitar part from the day when it was recorded. Then I finally remembered where I had been standing when that song was performed: behind the singer, holding an electric guitar, doing "noodly stuff".
That was the first time I'd ever heard my own playing without perceiving it first through the "I know where the mistakes are", "is this good enough, is it really good enough?", and "I want this to be good" filters. It was the first time I'd ever had an honest reaction to my own playing. And despite the fact that telling the story feels like I'm being a smug braggart, the feeling at that moment of realizing that when I heard myself the same way I hear other guitarists I actually do like my own playing, was pretty damned nice.
Of course it was also combined with the cognitive dissonance of, "I just snuck up on myself," enough so that that's now how I describe that way of getting into that "listen honestly to myself because I forgot it was me" headspace.
(It's still hard for me to listen to myself that way when I know it's me. And even harder to read myself -- I don't write as much as you do, so it's harder for me to lose track of my own words when encountering them later, I think.)
So yeah, it does feel smug to say, "Fuck, I'm clever!" but what if that's the honest truth? (And obviously I think you're clever enough to keep getting into my QotD file.)
If that's not the reason reading your own cleverness makes you simultaneously embarrassed and feeling like a prick, then I've just wasted a few paragraphs sounding smug myself, but I'm interested in hearing why.