Teenage Angst
The best criticisms gives you the tools to get better.
When I began this site 2024-2025 it was a skeletal wreck of what can be described as teenage angst. This is not the vibe I want to put out into the world, nor the quality of work I want to reflect on my life. How does sharing this, the birthing pangs of a project help the world?
It lays open the messy process. I feel shame with what I have to present. It is unfinished, unrefined, a first draft. This vulnerability gives permission for others to feel and move through that emotion. Laying this part of the process open also provides an example of how it is done.
It took some sober self reflection but I’ve found the source of the moody chaos I’m feeling. This gives me the opportunity to work with it, to work through it.
The source of my struggle are multiple motivations and a vision of perfection. That Perfection is what Steven Pressfield describes brilliantly in "his book “Do the Work” as Resistance. If you are struggling to create anything at all I encourage you to pick up that book.
Resistance is winning when all I’m seeing is an uncrossable gap between my current state and an idealized “finished” product. When I pause to think about this “finished” product I can’t actually wrap my head around it.
When is anything really done anyway? Is a tree done, or perfect when it is fully grown? Or is it perfect when its a fresh sprout, without scars of age or weathering? Perhaps a tree is perfect and complete, when it is just a seed? We do not burden the world with “done” or “perfect,” but we do burden our selves with these concepts. In a universe of constant change there is no such thing as “done,” there is no state that is “perfect” there is only, always moving.
I have to trash, throw out my vision.
I have to trash, throw out my vision. This does not mean proceeding without a plan or rigor, but at this stage it means follow my joy and interest with discipline.
Being honest with myself
The other arm of resistance I’m facing is confusion and a muddling of the forces that are compelling me to move forward. I had to force my self to sit still and look within. I also had to get some outside perspectives. A friend therapist or spouse are great resources for just this sort of thing.
What was slowly illuminated for me was the roots of my tummult and confusion. I am an infant in the art of creation, and I haven’t done the work of knowing my why-my self.
These are the reasons why I want to create something. But not necessarily in this order.
I want to.
I want the world to recognize me.
I want to do something good for the people, the planet, all life, and creation.
I need something external to point to as a success, for self-worth & value.
I want to make $ and be a larger contributer to my household. I want more option in life
and this is also connected with external signs of social validation of my value.
Those are my whys. No wonder I was frustrated, swirling in a murky pool of emotions. Because of the conflicting drives my efforts where spasmodic. There's an old engineering adage “form follows function.” I didn’t have a clear function, thus the form was constantly shifting.
