Toxic feedback. We have all suffered from it. Everyone has that friend or relative who undercuts you under the guise of “helping” you. I once had a roommate who critiqued my cooking. One day, the pecans in the pancakes were too close together. And sometimes, the food was too . . . warm.
Toxic feedback comes from people who feel that they must say something. Writers’ groups are Petri dishes for toxic feedback.
Toxic feedback withers our souls.
This is a story of toxic feedback and the consequence that spans centuries.
A picture I took this week of the Florence cathedral.
Florence’s cathedral was begun in 1296. Due to delays caused by interruptions like the Black Death, that killed over half Florence’s population, the work stretched on for centuries. By 1418, the cathedral was finished except for the dome.
In what had to be a leap of faith as large as the cathedral, the architect had designed a dome so big, no one knew how to build it. An octagonal dome higher and wider than any that had ever been built, with no external buttresses to keep it from spreading and falling under its own weight.
Because they didn’t want those ugly gothic buttresses sticking out like skeletal ribs. This was the Renaissance.
Not only were buttresses considered ugly and old-fashioned, but Florence’s enemies to the north favored that style.
Finally, a guy named Brunelleschi figured out how to build it, and so it’s world famous as Brunelleschi’s Dome. It was the first octagonal dome in history to be built without a temporary wooden frame (there was not enough timber in Tuscany to build the supports and scaffolding). It is one of the most impressive projects of the Renaissance.
But this story is not about Brunelleschi. It’s about an artist named Baccio D’Agnolo.
Sensitive guy. Too sensitive.
Baccio was commissioned to create a line of decoration just below the roof. He chose white marble to contrast with the red tiles. He created an ornamental design of columns and arches. He worked on it for nine years, and in that time, he completed one of the eight sides.
Then he made his big mistake. He decided he wanted feedback. He halted the work and asked the Florentines what they thought. And Michelangelo said, “It looks like a cage for crickets.”
Baccio was so heartbroken, he abandoned the work and it remains unfinished today.
Here you can clearly see the lovely completed side and the other sadly unfinished sides. A lasting monument to toxic feedback.
Was Michelangelo being a jerk? Or were they friends and he was just teasing? Either way, the result was the same. Millions and millions of people would have seen and appreciated Baccio’s design over the centuries. But he let one man shut him down.
So many writers have told me that they hired an editor who ripped up their manuscript, so they stopped writing. Or that so many rejection letters from agents convinced them that they weren’t any good. Or how a friend, a spouse, a mom made an offhand comment (remember, perhaps Michelangelo was teasing), but the writer was so hurt, he packed up his work and stuck it in the closet.
Speaking of toxic, how about all those people who make themselves feel smart by writing a nasty book review on the internet?
And, most tragically, we give ourselves toxic feedback. I’ve talked to several writers who burned everything they ever wrote in a fit of self-doubt. So:
- Don’t be a source of toxic feedback.
- Don’t seek random validation, as Baccio did. That’s asking for toxic feedback.
- Be very careful what you say to yourself.
- But, get a thicker skin.
Has someone given you toxic feedback that really stung, that you remember until now, that changed your direction?
From now on, whenever anyone gives you toxic feedback on your writing, your drawing, your meal: Remember Baccio.
Finding our stories . . . and ourselves.
–Alison