The less self-conscious you are about what you are about, the better in a way, that is to say technically. You have to get it in your blood, not in the head.
Interpretation
Being less self-aware can enhance your authenticity and technical skill.
Flannery O'Connor suggests that true mastery and expression come from an innate connection to one's craft rather than overthinking it. When a person is less self-conscious and lets their instincts and experiences guide them, they can achieve a more genuine and technically proficient outcome in their work.
In practice
An artist discussing their creative process at a gallery opening.
Let me make no bones about it: I write from the standpoint of Christian orthodoxy. Nothing is more repulsive to me than the idea of myself setting up a little universe of my own choosing and propounding a little immoralistic message. I write with a solid belief in all the Christian dogmas.
What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.
If you live today, you breath in nihilism ... it's the gas you breathe. If I hadn't had the Church to fight it with or to tell me the necessity of fighting it, I would be the stinkingest logical positivist you ever saw right now.
There won't be any biographies of me because, for only one reason, lives spent between the house and the chicken yard do not make exciting copy.
Knowing who you are is good for one generation only. You haven't the foggiest idea where you stand now or who you are
He loved her because it was his nature to do so, but there were times when he could not endure her love for him. There were times when it became nothing but pure idiot mystery.
Once a fight has started, if you get involved in thinking about what to do, you will be cut down by your opponent with the very next blow.
Great hearts can only be made by great troubles. Great faith must have great trials.
One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind. In order to read what is good one must make it a condition never to read what is bad; for life is short, and both time and strength limited.
You can pray while you work. Work doesn't stop prayer and prayer doesn't stop work. It requires only that small raising of the mind to him: I love you God, I trust you, I believe in you, I need you now. Small things like that. They are wonderful prayers.
Don't use big words. They mean so little.
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