Isn’t it funny how strong moments of clarity will hit you at such random moments? You’re driving home from the grocery store, half-listening to a podcast, and bam. It’s interesting how big decisions can be made like that. By the gut, in a matter of moments, which you later justify with logic and reason. The experience of having an epiphany is fascinating.
I say all this because I’ve had a few minor ones recently about creative focus. Unfortunately, these minor epiphanies are things I’ve already “learned” before. I put learned in quotation marks because, if I had genuinely learned these lessons, you wouldn’t be reading this essay right now. I knew these things way earlier this year, but convinced myself I’d be able to juggle many different projects. I was wrong.
When it comes to creative work, passion projects, or whatever you want to call it, I like the idea of being a jack of all trades because I have so many different interests. I’ve always viewed developing skills in multiple different areas as a way to enrich my experience of life. I still think this is accurate, and that it is also a way to become more interesting to other people. That said, like everyone else, I’m constrained by time and energy.
My time and energy have gone into flirting with all sorts of online projects: long-form speaking videos, podcasts in Spanish, even teaching English online. But I’ve realized that these pursuits are all ultimately a distraction from what I love most: writing. As opposed to other activities, I’ve never thought I wanted to read and write a ton. I’ve known it. I just do it without thinking twice or feeling like I have to force myself to do it.
Being in a caffeine-fueled early morning writing flow state is one of the best feelings in the world. Same with getting lost in a book. It’s right up there with hitting a contested mid-range pull-up on the basketball court. It’s pure flow, and an escape from everything.
It’s not that I don’t enjoy the other projects I started, but they weren’t as natural to me. I liked the idea of these activities more than I actually liked doing them. This is a strange aspect of our minds. You can be convinced you’re going to dislike doing something and end up loving it in the act, and vice versa.
To have a realization like this, you have to be honest with yourself. And I recently got brutally honest in reflecting about how I feel before writing versus before sitting in front of a mic or figuring out how to teach language. Steven Pressfield talks about “fighting resistance” in The War of Art. This is a useful concept and part of the job for any creative work. But if the resistance never fades—and it feels like a chore every time—you have to start wondering if you should be doing something else. Or at least take a break and revisit it later.
Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is quit.
I’ll give you an absurd example. When I studied abroad in Spain, it was during the summer. So when I got home to Massachusetts, there was only one month left until fall semester of my senior year started. Not wanting to start a whole new job in such a short window, but still wanting to make some cash before the new semester, I started helping my friend’s uncle manage his real estate properties. On the second day, he asked me to shoot some anti-hornet spray at a nest that was in a dumpster. I told him no multiple times. He insisted, and against all my better judgment, I went ahead and did it. Unsurprisingly, I got stung and was furious afterwards. When we got back to his house, he told me to clean up a garden while he ran an errand. I just left. Walked right off the job and never went back.
I’m more the villain than the hero in this story, I suppose, and it’s something like a caricature of the point I’m trying to make, but you get it. You need to know when to step away from things and double down on what you enjoy most. Because I’m also getting realistic about how much volume is required to be really good at a specific thing. And as a twenty-four-year-old who is just getting started, I want that volume to be directed towards writing essays and books.1
I bet some people worry about starting projects and not seeing them all the way through. Who cares? “Speak what you think today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.”2 To think is to contradict your past self.
Although I still plan on making short form videos on language, fitness, books. They are more lightweight and easy and don’t take up much time.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance, 1841
A great reminder that the best way to learn if you're actually passionate about something is to put it into practice. Enjoyed the read today Jeff.