Why does nothing feel good enough?

The creative’s bane of existence.

Here I sit, it’s Friday morning and I haven’t a single line written all week – for various reasons – with about 10 ideas for articles written in my head to about 10%...but nothing feels good enough.

Creatives know this feeling all too well, and I’ve talked about it before, but at some point you have to draw the line – sometimes literally – on what you’re doing and when it’s finished. The thing is, and I believe most artists will agree with me, it’s a damn sight easier to start something than to finish something.

Photo by No Revisions on Unsplash.

Now, no doubt there are elements of perfectionism and idealism – which I proclaim to be a fervent sufferer of (or recovering addict) – an insistence to a morally just creation that is a salute to both the gods of truth and beauty.

“Cranking the music to drown out the noise, but how long until the music becomes the noise?”

The inner critic is always the harshest, although “outer” critics are far more plentiful – with the silence sometimes more deafening – at least they don’t follow you around 24/7 like your own thoughts and appraisals do. Still, it’s easier to perform to an audience, even if it’s heckling, than to an empty crowd.

The block that occurs seems to have a mysterious quality about it, no one really knows why or how it happens, only that we can only hope that it goes away quickly. One does not simply force creativity, and if you try it will dramatically decrease its quality. Such is the modern nature with deadlines and the endless online machine, I believe this is partly why we see so much low-quality art in circulation.

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash.

I’ve always found it difficult to celebrate mediocrity, and I still do. Which is why I don’t celebrate a lot really, as sad as that may sound. This also applies to myself, perhaps even most stringently to myself – refer above to the harsh inner critic. I expect and demand more of myself than anyone else, after all, how can you ask something of someone which you haven’t asked of yourself?

I always worry about being misunderstood, which is probably why I painstakingly examine what I write almost to a chronically pathological standpoint. I’m aware this is probably redundant in 2025 given that not even our journalists do this, and that people are lining up to tell you why you’re horrible and wrong regardless of how good and virtuous you are and aiming towards truth.

“Maybe I should channel my inner Trump and write about ‘My Big Beautiful Blog’ and ‘why nobody writes blogs better than me’ and see how it goes.”

The creative process is never finished. It’s a perpetual, iterative machination. An authentic exercise in the crucible of trial and error. A barrage of internal and external negativity that would only be undertaken by those who felt morally obligated and spiritually compelled to do so. There’s a reason why we require so much solitude or choose to isolate ourselves away; most are either not interested or capable of what we put ourselves through. 

“In every work of genius, we recognise our own rejected thoughts.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

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