Let’s Talk About Doing

I am ALWAYS in a reflective mood.

So here's the thing. I could easily spend entire days playing video games. Hell, I have spent entire days playing video games. There's something appealing about that—sinking into a world someone else created, following paths someone else designed, getting those little dopamine hits from achievements that don't actually require me to risk anything real.

But underneath all that comfortable numbness, there's this persistent itch. This voice that won't shut up about projects I want to tackle, stories I want to write, things I want to make that don't exist yet.

Tell me if this sounds familiar: You get really excited about a creative idea to the point where you think about it during work or while you're cooking. The obsession takes such a hold that you even sacrifice a good Saturday afternoon to work on it. You finish part of it, feel great, then go home knowing you're going to do it again tomorrow.

Then the next day comes, and you don't feel like doing any of it.

Welcome to my brain for the past... oh, let's say fifteen years.

The Burnout Thing Again

I've been down this road so many times I could walk it blindfolded. The cycle goes like this: Get excited about a creative project. Throw myself into it completely. Work on it obsessively for days or weeks. Hit the inevitable wall where the work gets harder and less immediately rewarding. Feel frustrated that it's not coming together as perfectly as I imagined. Abandon the project. Feel guilty about abandoning it. Avoid creative work altogether because it feels like evidence that I can't follow through on anything.

Rinse and repeat.

The problem isn't lack of ideas. It's this all-or-nothing approach that sets me up for failure before I even start. I know this intellectually—I've written about it before. But knowing something and changing the pattern are two very different things.

What's worse is that I feel like I'll never get any better than where I am right now. I liken it to being stuck in a fog, with no road or sign post to show where I should be going. At least E.L. Doctorow had headlights.

The Time Anxiety (Or: What If I'm Wasting My Life?)

Then there's the time thing. Every minute I spend on a creative pursuit feels like it needs to justify itself. Will this lead anywhere? Is this the "right" project? What if I spend months on something that doesn't pan out? What if I'm not good enough at this to make it worthwhile?

These questions are creativity killers, but they feel so rational in the moment. Time feels finite and precious. Video games promise a return on investment—three hours of gaming will reliably produce three hours of entertainment. Three hours spent writing might produce something amazing, or something terrible, or nothing at all.

But here's what I'm starting to realize: The question "What if I waste my time?" assumes that time spent creating is only valuable if the end result meets some external standard of success. It ignores the possibility that the process itself has value.

A Meta-Confession (Because Of Course I'm Using AI for This)

I should probably admit something here: I'm writing this blog post with help from AI. Not because I can't write—I've been blogging on and off since 2013—but because I was paralyzed by the fear that anything I wrote myself wouldn't be good enough.

There's something both ironic and illuminating about this. Here I am, writing about the fear of creative pursuits, while simultaneously using a tool to help me overcome that very fear. The AI didn't write this for me—these thoughts, these experiences, this struggle is entirely my own. But having it as a collaborator removed just enough friction to let me get started.

And once you're started, momentum becomes possible.

What I've Learned (So Far)

I've been documenting this struggle for years now. Daily blog projects, fiction months, attempts at consistency that flame out after a few weeks. But I've picked up a few things along the way:

Trust the process. This wasn't always the case. Every time I failed to be consistent before, I focused on results. When I didn't see anything happening, I'd give up. But I'm disciplined enough now to write both a daily blog post and an entry in my physical journal. That consistency matters more than the quality of any individual piece.

Deadlines help, but don't kill yourself over them. I've learned to give myself deadlines—like finishing an article by Friday, which means about 50 words a day. But if I miss it, I won't beat myself up. This keeps the stress from overwhelming me and making me want to give up entirely.

Buffer content is your friend. On days when you're too tired to think of new content, having something decent ready to go keeps you from breaking the chain. I'm not pressuring myself to make this happen immediately, but it's a goal.

These posts can't all be winners. Sometimes you write something just to keep your spirits up. Sometimes you don't want to force yourself to perform at your best while running on empty.

Finding Relief

The thing is, I'm at a point now where I feel more relief than anxiety about writing. I trust the process. I know that as long as I stay consistent, I can keep my focus on the work, not the product. That's enough to make me feel less worked up about results.

I know there will be days where I won't feel this way. I've already felt that sense of dread and failure many times, even in the past month. But I keep showing up anyway.

Because the alternative—not creating at all—doesn't feel like living.

The Bottom Line

I feel good about the direction I'm going, not just with writing but with life in general. I'm trying to find a middle path between creative paralysis and creative burnout. Some days that looks like setting smaller goals instead of grand ambitious projects. Some days it's working for set periods instead of until I'm exhausted. Some days it's just showing up and writing 50 words about being too tired to write anything good.

The key is showing up.

So yeah, let's talk about doing. Not the romanticized version where tortured artists create masterpieces through suffering. Just the regular kind where you sit down, do a little work, and trust that something worthwhile will emerge if you keep at it long enough.

That's it for now. I've written so much about this, but I'm not trying to make it a big deal—I just wanted to let you know where my head's at these days.