I quite enjoy watching the Great British Bake Off and the Great British Sewing Bee. They are my favorites.
Sometimes I watch old episodes just because they are so relaxing.
I was watching an old series of Bake off yesterday, series 2, and some of the bakers were faced with disaster. They were going through so much anguish and stress, that I myself felt my stomach turning from all the pressure.
As I was watching them try to recover some of their bakes and working to manage the pressure I was thinking ‘Why do that to yourself?’ ‘To test your skills? To get on TV?’
None of those people became celebrity bakers or something, I have not seen any of them later having their own shows. Maybe they wrote books, but I do not know.
The amateur bakers surely enjoyed baking in general since they were there, but the competition put so much pressure on them that it really felt like it took out all the pleasure from it.
It is the same with the Sewing Bee, happy amateurs become stressed out of their minds contestants.
I was thinking about this and I assume they do it maybe because it is a way of having their passion validated. If you go on TV and say you are a baker, then for sure you are a baker, for better or for worse.
Also, a big incentive might be the chance to meet people that have the same interest as you. You get to spend time with people that are as passionate about the various type of meringue as you are.
It might be that some people actually enjoy the pressure, that kick of adrenaline when you have to deliver a cake or a dress against a strict deadline.
Humans are complicated and sometimes, our actions are not easy to understand, but I think that the Bake off or the Sewing Bee are quite benign, unlike other reality shows or competitions that can be toxic, and attract viewership for the spectacle the participants make of themselves.
I saw recently that we will soon have a knitting competition series called The Game of Wool. I so hope it will be nice, I really love wool, and sweaters … fingers crossed!
But back to our woolly sheep!
As a decent human that makes everything about themselves, I was thinking if I would subject myself to that kind of stress or pressure.
I assume it is like writing for money, against a tight deadline, you have to deliver your work no matter what, it is not like me writing the same book for over … hmmm … rather not say!
I am thinking though that a deadline will actually force you to deliver, while ‘all the time in the world’, can condemn you to trying to perfect your work forever. Voltaire’s words rang into my head when I was writing that, he said:
The best is the enemy of the good.(French: Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.)
I interpret this as perfectionism stopping us, me, from progressing and actually delivering a completed work.
So, maybe, if I were in a writing competition, having to deliver something I would actually do it. Maybe, no idea really …
You have to admire though, people going out of their comfort zone, kitchen or sewing room, and putting themselves out there, trying it out, exposing themselves to failure, allowing themselves to grow.
Maybe that is what I should think about …