#96 Massive addiction, minimal value

656 days ago, I started writing 3 pages of stream-of-consciousness journaling a day.

That’s an inner dialogue of 1968 pages poured into piles of journals now safely stuffed away.

30 days ago, some of those thoughts started making their way to my blog.

I promised myself that if I made it to 30 daily posts in a row, I would start sharing them.

Today is the day, so here goes.

I’m sharing daily observations about language, language learning, memory, creativity, habits, discipline, the art of learning, tools for thought.

Lessons I’ve learned.
Insights I’ve earned.

Words I’ve heard.
Memories spurred.

Books I’ve read.
Poems flowing out of my heart and head.

No rules, no fixed topic, no niche, no marketing strategy.
Nothing but whatever’s on my mind.

I’ve learned a lot so far, but the most important insight: there’s power in publishing imperfect work.

Because if I allow myself to create something imperfect every day, I’m certain that someday the sum of all these imperfect creations will be something I’m proud of.

It’s liberating.

Maybe there’s liberating power in reading someone else’s imperfect work too.

I can’t wait to find out together with you.

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My journey to overcoming self-doubt as a writer:

• I write every day, even when I didn’t feel inspired.
• I publish imperfect work every day, and saw nothing bad happened.
• I publish frequently to reduce the “burden of quality” on each piece (if I publish every day, it doesn’t matter if some posts don’t do so well, because I’ll post again tomorrow anyway.

In short: write and publish to overcome the fear of writing and publishing. Yes, it can be as simple as that.

Admiring (flawed) early work is easy when we already know the late work is going to be great.

Everyone forgives Picasso or Da Vinci for a lousy early sketch. In fact, people pay good money to hang one in their living room.

Maybe the early work, showing that even the greats are mere mortals on a journey towards excellence, is the most valuable?

And yet, it’s much harder to be gentle on a beginning artist for shipping mediocre creative work – not in the least for the beginning artist themselves – when their path to excellence hasn’t unfolded yet.

After all, something that one day will be “my early work” is still “my current best work” today.

The road to excellence is invisible from the trenches.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

Which makes me wonder…

When I know that through persistence and daily practice, one day, I’ll look back on today’s creation, smiling, thinking: “Oh how far I’ve come… How much I’ve learned… And some of this was actually pretty good…”

Can I admire my creative work less for what it looks, feels, or sounds like, and more for who I’m becoming through making it?

Can I do the same for the creative projects of others?

With that mindset… How much easier and forgiving would the daily creative journey be?