THE JOY OF DOING SOMETHING BADLY
I thought this was an interesting essay, and made a good point--one relevant for those of us with Moebius, especially:
"It's no secret, among my friends and family, that I can't sing. I have a voice that could peel paint off the walls.
For a long time I hid this flaw, embarrassed. I willed myself to silence when a favorite song came on the radio, lip-synched "Happy Birthday" whenever somebody brought out a cake.
In church when voices were ablaze with the praise songs I loved, I imagined that some other woman's sweet soprano was coming out of my mouth. "Getting happy off of someone else's sound" was what I called it.
One Sunday morning I was pressing my lips shut and clapping my hands when the minister sidled up next to me. "Why aren't you singing?" he asked. "I can't sing," I whispered to him, afraid of attracting too much attention. "I have an awful voice."
Then the minister looked at me and said five of the most beautiful words I have ever heard. He said, "Do you think God cares?"
Ever since that glorious day, my love for singing has grown exponentially. I sing in the shower and around the house.
I sing in the car, at church, and on the dance floor. The DJ who plays Gloria Gaynor is just asking for me to put a hurting on "I Will Survive."
I've learned that it's a blessing when you can take something you once weighted down with shame and turn it into a pleasure. There's an art to doing things badly, especially in a society that puts so much emphasis on beauty, perfection, and achievement.
Most of us talk ourselves out of doing anything we're not good at. Maybe we don't admit that our egos drive us to put forth only our brightest and best selves. We are, after all, so busy. Who has time for something we fully expect to be miserable at?
Liba, an artist friend of mine, gave me a set of watercolors and paper. It sat on the shelf for years because I'd never learned to draw, let alone paint, anything more than a smiley face.
I couldn't waste that lovely paper on smiley faces. Besides -- and this was always the clincher -- who would I show my artwork to?
I don't think I'm alone in my elementary school affinity for show-and-tell. Why learn a piece of music unless it's to be performed? Why knit a sweater unless it's to be given to a loved one?
We think everything we do has to be up to snuff, and we forget that the pure, uncensored joy of living in our own skin comes when we are not attached, 24-7, to either our fans or our critics.
We can paint just for ourselves. We can belt out torch songs in an empty office when everyone else has gone home and tango across the living room solo. No one's going to stop us from baking soufflés that fall and eating them in the privacy of our own kitchens.
Trust me on this one: Chocolate doesn't have to be beautiful to taste really, really good."

Very well said.  And who among us in the Moebius community has not fallen victim to this?  We fear we don't do somethng well enough---speak publicly, look pretty or handsome enough, etc.  So we hang back; we hide.  I've been guilty of that in the past too.  But we have to fight against that.  If you have a passion, engage it!  Who cares what others think?  If's what you think about what you're doing that counts.
Read the rest of the article; it's worth it...

"If you listen to your fears, you will die never knowing
what a great person you might have been." -Robert H. Schuller