This year has not, I admit, been the most visibly productive of my life. I released no records with Fosca, or succeeded in having any other written work published, save contributions like the one to Smoke Magazine. My diary went for weeks without entries.

It's true that I've been stricken with various illnesses, bouts of paralyzing depression, and general addiction to procrastination, but the chief excuse is a general fear of failing. Or rather, of producing anything that might be substandard. This, I now realise, is just not good enough. One must never be afraid of releasing material that might not be up to scratch. Writing anything is better than writing nothing. Work calls down work, just as apathy calls down apathy. As long as something is centred on Personal Truth, any idea of "failing" can only be based on the criteria of others. Criteria, which ultimately is irrelevant. This is your own life you're living, after all, not the life of others.

On the day the accompanying photograph to this entry was taken, at Somerset House here in London, England, I visited a retrospective exhibition in the building, which celebrated that great British children's illustrator, Mr Quentin Blake. His work, often best known through working with Roald Dahl, is sketchy and spiky and brimming with joy, energy, and wit. Yet, in that day's issue of Metro Newspaper, the exhibition was given a dismissive review. The critic, whose name fortunately escapes me in this season of forgiveness, attacked Mr Blake's work for being… spiky and sketchy. As far as the writer was concerned, Mr Blake's entire 50 year career (he'd been illustrating for Punch Magazine in the late 40s), was a complete waste of time. His crime was Being Quentin Blake.

This example of the way many are all too quick to race for blank judgement based on their own personal reflexes, for refusing to even try and see both wood and trees, to condemn Mr Pope for being Catholic, is a particularly insidious vice. It is one that exists in everyone, and one that must be resisted with great force. Mr Bernard Shaw pointed out that, contrary to the motivational saying, one should NOT do unto others as you expect they should do unto you: their tastes may not be the same.

With this in mind, I look back at the diary entries I DID manage to write and put on the Web this year. For me, they do constitute "work" of an equal value as any record or concert or properly published piece of writing. Leafing through past entries of 2003, the longer ones, I'm rather pleased with them. Otherwise I'd be feeling extremely jealous. It's not what one DOES that matters here, so much as what one THINKS.

I may have physically done very little in 2003, save from the occasional Fosca gig, not least the trip to Athens, but I've Been Dickon Edwards more than ever. The edges are a lot smoother. As long as one can keep that up, and put out as much work as possible (even if it's just diary entries) that springs directly from Being Oneself, one will never "fail". And this applies to anyone who too feels they are at the mercy of the Achievement Criteria of others.

Through self-awareness, comes self-belief. Through that, a way of dealing with the rest of the world. And then, of appreciating the work and lives of others more than ever. The paradox is this. Narcissism, once developed properly and for some time, skips hand in hand with Consideration. It is often those who think they are speaking as One Of The Crowd who are really selfish, self-deluding and blind to the ways of others. The House Of Commons is full of them.

The other paradox is that, in order to BE more and more, one must DO more and more. The edges will always need as much smoothing as possible.

And so, I look to 2004 with an eye on restricting my tendency of this previous year to fall through cracks in time and cracks in make-up. Enough is enough.

Dickon Edwards
Highgate, London N6

<i>Photo by Simon (<lj user=mzdt>)</i>