#015: The Effort Paradox

The real reason creating things is hard—and the inconvenient truth that breaks the cycle.

my dry spell

I really, really wanted this issue to work.

Most early mornings, I sat down and whittled away. I even had what I thought was an exceptional idea—the concept of transcending the mind versus trying to change it.

I wrote, scrapped, and rewrote it half a dozen times. By the fourth week, I was recording voice memos, regurgitating the concept with friends, doing anything to get that familiar spark of clarity.

Nothing.

On an intellectual level, I knew what to say. But it felt like I was parroting something I’d read in a book rather than tapping into something real and palpable to me. The harder I pushed for the insight to come, the paler it grew—a tepid corpse of the original idea.

Could I have written it anyway and moved on? Totally. I could’ve published it for the sake of “staying consistent” or letting go of “not good enough.” Maybe it would have helped someone, even if I couldn’t feel it.

But I didn’t.

Publishing like that felt like fulfilling yet another arbitrary obligation—antithetical to the whole purpose of this newsletter. Just another version of "doing."

Feeling bummed (and burned) out, I took a few days off and let my wild transcendence dreams go along with my half-baked metaphors.

When I came back to write, the only thing I could focus on was why this one had been impossible to finish.

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how creativity works

Most times, for most people, the decision to create anything is personal.

Makes sense. You have to care enough about something to dedicate time and energy to it.

A painting, film, book, business idea.

You draw a container, tune out the world, and you and this idea crawl inside.

It’s an intimate relationship with this thing that doesn’t even exist yet. You sculpt, shape, nudge. You nurture. You mother.

What I understand now is this personal relationship is only the entry point. It helps us cross the barrier from "nothing" to "something."

At a critical point, we have to loosen our grip and detach.

I never did that with the last issue. I cared too much—about the topic, about getting the perfect epiphany – the kind that would inspire the right people and be palatable to skeptics.

I tightened my grip, and I subsequently got dragged in circles.

It’s beautifully ironic—this whole process of creating.

1. Care enough to create.

2. Remember that the thing you're creating doesn’t matter. None of it does.

3. Let go.

Most of us, especially creators, understand the final step is necessary, but we lose sight of #2.

My thing doesn't matter? It's a hard thing to digest after convincing yourself of the opposite for god knows how long.

That's the paradox of caring. At first, it's beneficial—it makes the work feel REAL. But there comes a moment when that weight becomes suffocating. The same force that gave it life now threatens to smother it.

Let it go.

You stepped in. Now, step back out. This is the dance.

Here's the cool thing.

It's never just you and the Thing in the container.

Yes, you make the space; you show up; your focus gets it going, smoking.

But there's something else that transforms it. Something invisible, unthinkable, intangible. With my writing, I grow a little more sensitive to a voice that isn’t really mine.

This energy—the oxygen—is what catches it on fire.

But you have to step back and stop trying to control it.

I can't write for the finished product. I can't even write for you. That muddies any connection I have to this weird, egoless energy.

I write to experience alchemy.

The spontaneous elation of an epiphany. The dumb yet delightful detail on a doodle. A line that makes me feel the stunning simplicity of life.

Creating is starting a fire. You don't own or control it, but you sit beside it, let it warm you, and watch it flicker into something you didn't anticipate.

A life creating a little life.