HOW CAN I WRITE WHEN NOTHING IS GOOD ENOUGH?

High five if you’ve ever felt this:

“I don’t want to write because if I write one thing, that means I’m not writing another thing at the same time.” This common form of dualism has annihilated (and still does) an infinite amount of great ideas. The formula:

I this do + but I should also do that = I this do, but can’t do that = I not can do this nor that = I not can do anything. This impersonal creative functionality looks so innocent, that we easily underestimate its destructiveness.

Another example of the formula might sound like this: “Even though I’m working on one of the things I’d love to be doing. I have a thought that I should also be doing another thing. This makes me feel bad. I’d rather do nothing instead of trying to do something I love fighting with lurking through that I should be doing something else.”

Here, two thoughts have decided that they can’t live together. Anxiety boils up because the writer has been cast as a divorce-child, asked to choose between parents. Let’s take that further. What if we play along with this analogy. Is this your responsibility? What if these two thoughts are allowed to fight?

Maybe this feeling is tapping into our self-image: We’re good people and we are dominated by wanting to resolve everything. Let’s dare an inch further. What if this dualism is just another form of ‘creative procrastination.’

You can play with re-ordering the formula until it’s no longer a threat. Here is one example, but I urge you to do your own version.

Re-order example: I this do + but I should also do that = No human in world history has been able to do two things completely simultaneously = How that mean I can’t do anything? = I can do this and I do that later = I can do anything if I do one thing at a time.