The Crushing Weight

I feel better when I have a place to put my thoughts. You can think of it in a very objective, analytical way, like counting steps. If you’re 15 steps away from something, that’s further than 5 steps. If you have to open 3 doors to get to a certain room in your house, that’s harder than 1 door. And when it comes to writing, I want there to be as little space as possible between inspiration, creating something, and being done.

I employ all sorts of tricks for this. I try to work on projects with a finite end date so they don’t stall out. I try to avoid what Ze Frank calls “brain crack” by getting things out into the world as quickly as possible. Even if the quality won’t be high. I try to tell myself “the best you can is good enough.” I remind myself that I can never watch everything, read everything, or go everywhere, so the best thing to do is pick and then appreciate. I do not relate to people who spend time finding just the right restaurant, only to wait in line with all the other min-maxxers. Give me a hole in the wall. Maybe the food’s not good. Fine. I don’t mind. Let’s go summarises my own approach to most things. Not because I’m in a hurry reach a destination but because I enjoy the feeling of movement. Even if it’s in the wrong direction. Even if I have to backtrack. Go!

Recently my creative processes have been weighing down on me. I have a lot of blogs — “ah ha!” you may be thinking. “You have too many blogs, you should reduce them and reap the benefits!” Actually, it’s the opposite, hold that thought — but recently I’ve not been able to categorise my writing, so I get paralysed. Perhaps some examples will help. I have a blog for getting better at cooking, and this general blog. But if I want to excitedly talk about a new project, I don’t have a dedicated place for that, and I don’t want to pollute this blog. And so I sit on it. And the energy curdles. It’s too many steps, so it’s not as fresh.

I think I’m going to start yet another blog, which is probably number 10 or 15 or so. I’ve been combining them all into my Firehose, a project I’ve quite enjoyed working on for the last year or so. I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up with 50 blogs, which sounds crazy. Shouldn’t I just mix my visual blog product with my thesis with my photo gallery with my projects with my medium.com blog with everything else? No. Because when I do that I write less.

So 50 blogs it is. I’d rather have one step to 50 blogs than 50 steps to 1.