--- title: The occasional creator's lie brief: A small ramble, really, on why certain acts of creating and expressing through art can still feel painful type: blog tags: - personal - real_life - reflection - ramble --- > I can do this We all say something like that even when we're not sure, do we? That little self-reassurance that some task can be tackled, perhaps not immediately or with elegance but passable *enough*. Even when it's just a comforting lie - even if we genuinely can't do something, but need to just *try* and see for ourselves. As it turns out, if you say it too often, it looses its meaning. It was a few days ago where I found myself watching the last layer of paint finish drying on our first at-real-scale printed Fursuit piece for [Lucy](/projects/lucy). The result is stunning - sharp contrasts of glowing patterns and smooth black, gold highlights, a subtle mechanical patterning... It hit just about every single goal I was hoping to achieve with it. And it didn't feel like it meant anything, somehow - just another step forward to some eventual "maybe", something I felt like I should have been able to achieve long ago and simply ... Didn't. Creating things takes time, that is part of the trade. Either by needing to learn, research, waiting on materials, or just practicing. Time and patience are important tools for a passionate craftsman, and there's no cheating this. Everyone will need to start from scratch and climb up whatever mountain their mind decides will be "theirs", little by little. But this was a different kind of insecurity... For I know that I most likely have the skill and patience to learn whatever methods this fursuit needs, and yet there was - is - a corner of this mind exuding this sense of *futility* in trying to create. Futility not because the results were bad, but simply because ... There were no results yet. Not the ones I needed, anyway. Six years now. I've been trying to build this fursuit for almost six years, and I have so little to show. Not because of any failing of mine - life just happened. In the last six years I have moved between four different homes, a total of eight times. I've been a student. Worked at the Wendelstein, then CERN, then wrote my Master thesis, then started a doctorate course. Every single time this just rips your habits and progress up, gives you no room to breathe for a while, you leave equipment and the things you know behind. > I can do this I kept saying that. Every time life changed I had a few months of just needing to claw back my rhythm and habits, and I kept saying that. All the while, ideas for the fursuit kept being refined, like a careful distillation of thought - but the outlet is plugged. Friends want to be helpful, and they tell you that you can do this!! Pressure builds up. And you *can't* do this. You're busy figuring out your sleep rhythm for the sixth time. Your mind is busy finishing the important presentation for your studies. You need to find a favourite cafe again. You're learning how to write a paper. It doesn't work - like a broken machine, but there *is no off button for your desire*. It just keeps refining, growing, being added to. Ideas so clear I could write twenty pages of documentation for every nuance of the entire thing, with nowhere to go. Lucy is an incredibly personal project. So many of the finer details trace back to inspirations in media we enjoyed and ways we want to express. We want to *be*. It's not just a piece of art - it's like breathing, like a way to *exist*. It needs to happen for some part of this mind to feel like it really is *tangible* in this world, and even though one can hold their breath for a short while, you start gasping if you are without it for too long... Without air, everything starts feeling desperate. And you see other people. And they *can* do this. You see them progressing over years, see some absolutely *stunning* things happening. Making entire careers out of your dreams, putting ideas into life you were hoping to show off, all while you feel *stuck*. It's not resentment that formed, for me, but a strange... Nihilistic bitterness. It's been proven, then, that I *don't need* to do this, and my dreams belong in the hands of those actually able to work on them. The lie we tell ourselves looses its power, it only rings hollow now. Even if I *could* do this, I no longer need to. Other people have managed just fine, and every ounce of desire poured into these ideas, every moment mentally pulling at this, has meant nothing. May well never mean anything. Every fancy concept has remained all bark, no bite, for years. You even get sick of talking about what you *want* to do without ever getting to it, that you sometimes don't even feel joy sharing your ideas but rather this empty pull of desire you know has not been able to go anywhere for far too long, and you worry you are just bringing people false hope. That feeling of wanting to express through this project turns on you. Maybe if people are fine without your ideas, with this core desire to express you have - maybe then they simply do not need you. It's a incredibly selfish way to feel, and awfully competitive. It is a total falsehood too, of course. Logically I know that *every* piece of art matters, and every creation is unique and has value in itself. No matter if you start it now, in ten years, or maybe never, it will still matter. People's lives are touched by who we were, are, and want to be - often times for better, as by showing each other what we *dream* to achieve we learn more about the world we want to build towards! But the last few years still managed to leave odd scars in my desires, things I need to heal from. We have a favourite cafe, now, and I know my daily routine quite well. And burnt in still like on an old CRT are the feelings of helplessness in watching my life get rearranged again after a move, grasping at even the smallest bit of progress on my suit, while I watch others *being someone* that I hoped I could be, and like my chance to participate in this facet of life as a whole was taken away. Not through any lack of skill, or persistence, or worth, but simply by inconvenient happenstance. Their immediate cause gone, but the after-image stuck no matter how often you try to change the channel. For a while, nothing I do will be enough. Simply because my brain has decided to tell me that I failed, already, before even starting. We have so many grand ideas, and the stupid thing is that we don't want to compromise on them, so Lucy will take a *long* time to exist. But it has to. Even if some part of my mind says it doesn't matter any more, I still *care*, I still *exist* within the shape of this project and I need to see it done *right*. I'm just as much stuck in my pride as I am my vanity. Moving forward and trying kind of hurts - but giving now up would hurt more. I do not trust myself any more to say that I can do this... I do not trust my life to move me forward. But ... I *do* trust our *technical* skill, for everything we set out to do for Lucy. There is not a single technical detail that scares me, or a hurdle I see. Maybe that is enough. Maybe I will get a foothold some day, and join all the others that so effortlessly wear their fursuits. Maybe not, but ... I have to find out. I do hope these scars fade, and emotions ease. There is no good that is coming from these, but just as they took years to build and fester it may take a few years for them to heal, now that I have room to breathe again. I don't really know why I am writing this down. Maybe some people feel similar? For the most part, I just feel like these feelings need to get out. Things are going incredibly well, and are moving along. And that makes it so ... Treacherous, for this mind to throw these emotions on me. They make no sense - this is the progress we have been longing for for *years*. But such is the thing with scars and old injury. They flare up, from time to time. I may have to face the feeling that it is not enough every second I work on Lucy. But I will face it - because I can see what the end result could be like. And it is *everything*. These doubts may nag, but they will not keep me from proving them wrong. I just deeply hope I *can* prove them wrong. Don't be shy to reach out, if you feel similar. These kinds of feelings are burdens we do not need to feel alone. And sometimes, a simple reassurance from someone you know can help, more than you expect. I certainly know that these feelings only truly grow to be this consuming when I feel alone, as well. And we all deserve better than that Ad praeterita intellegenda, praesens sanandum, futurum formandum
Xasin