Yesterday I listened to an interview with Steven Pressfield YouTube | Spotify. It was very revealing in all matters of the creative struggle, and it gave me hope that—despite putting an end to my “independent creative” period soon—I will be able to tackle this challenge again in the future.
I will take full-time employment with a company in Barcelona in April. It came at just the right time—when you are despairing because you realize that the current situation is simply unsustainable. I’ve struggled through contract work of the best kind: a project that was right in my technical and creative ballpark, managed by a kind team, done for a social cause. Yet I’ve found myself struggling through it all, full of self-doubt, holding my breath as I was working, with no good explanation as to why this was happening.
The reason is partly a misunderstanding of the creative psychology. As I’ve come to fully accept myself, I’ve also accepted the voices of aversion, doubt and procrastination. I wait to feel inspired because I think I will be 10x more productive if I do so. So there are large gaps between my work sprints, and my work sprints only happen because of urgency, not because of inspiration.
I can work once urgency beats procrastination. This should have provided a clue that there was nothing wrong within except that I was believing whatever told me it wasn’t a good time to work. At the same time, I know by experience and intuition that conducting a war against yourself is folly, you will only be drained. The key to this is simply not listening. Resistance is part of the game. Listening to Pressfield talk about this so lucidly made me realize this.
I could clearly see a parallel between my other current passion, my body. My knee hurts. My left shoulder is inflamed. I have a strange pain that goes from my buttock to my knee. I have a knot on my trapezius. And yet, I hit the gym every day, even if I don’t feel like it, because I never question how I feel regarding if I attend the gym or not. But I also don’t force myself through a normal routine as if I were healthy. Instead of doing strength work I do rehab work, and I strengthen whatever can be strengthened (since it is not advisable to work your muscles asymmetrically, the only strength I can develop is my core). I don’t struggle with the question if I should exercise because it’s a fact that I will go to the gym.
In the same way, the way of escaping the creative struggle is not questioning wether I should work. If my mind is not sharp enough today, there’s always tweaking around with font sizes or layout issues. I know as a fact that I’ve faced this struggle before and come to the same conclusion, why is it that we forget time and time again?