B.Y.O.Bridge
A grab bag full of probably the wrong stuff
We’re taking a little break from the previous multi-part episode to bring you this important message. Fair warning: this will be your 29,392,843,520,352nd think piece about the new year.
No, you know what? I’m going to restraint myself.
Because this variety of mental gymnastics doesn’t have a calendar or a clock (but the onslaught of new year write ups certainly exacerbate the madness). Last time I mentioned how motivation and time aren’t necessarily what impede my progress. My version of Resistance is not wanting to watch myself suck at Something when I want so desperately to make the Something happen. So what do I do? I try a bunch of life hacks to MacGyver myself a bridge from Here to Being a Better Illustrator person. I imagine myself looking over at the landscape I want, daunted by how to get there, coming up with all sorts of creative ways to disguise avoidance.
So what’s missing from this diagram of materials and tools?
Practice. Literally just doing the work.
Steven Pressfield, author of Do The Work, should’ve made it to the grab bag, but that would get me too close to the right answer, and tinkering with the wrong answer satisfies my self-fulfilling prophecy of failure so accurately.
No, I’m dead center in Act Two, as Mr. Pressfield describes perfectly:
“The notorious Second Act Horrors. You feel like Columbus halfway across the Atlantic. You’ve come too far to go back but the goal is still so far off you can’t believe you’ll ever get there. Resistance loves this point. It jumps on you with every dark self-sabotage thought it’s got.”
Obviously, when we talk about “one step at a time,” we’re trying to set up little baby bite-size goals for ourselves so the Big Elephant End Game doesn’t feel so daunting. But for a person like myself, I need the Big Elephant End Game in my sights. My self-sabotage is that I need to know that the practice and work won’t end up being a complete waste of my time.
Which is incredibly annihilating. And the mental framework I need to dismantle.
It’s Not A Job
You know what turns something creative into hell on earth?
Treating it like work.
That’s where the hyper-masculinity of Mr. Pressfield’s “Warrior Ethos” and I part ways. I mean, admittedly he’s right! If you want to produce a thing, A. it’s going to take a ton of work + B. it will feel like another job to do (in addition to the other dozens of things that feel like jobs in your life), which = C. you better pull up those bootstraps, baby!
But there’s another way to go about it, and my hyper-responsible, Capricorn Goat Mountain-Climber Brain had no idea this was an option.
Sexy Time.
Did you see that coming? (Pun intended, I’m sorry.)
It’s Play
Structure, rules, guides, routines — these things only light up my “should” brain because I know they will take me from A to B to C in the right order, helpful for when you need to deliver a Thing that needs to work. But soooo not sexy. Completely not enticing. Because when you’re still in the exploration stage of what that Thing even is, you get stuck in Safety Mode. It’s like when you have to boot up your computer with access to only the bare minimum so you can find out how to fix it. Ick.
Exploration should feel free from walls and roads and maps and guideposts because you’re not on a path. You’re in a field or forest just looking at and playing with the pretty things.
It’s not utilitarian. It’s erotic.
Relationship-expert Esther Perel is the modern champion of all things erotic and how they play out (or don’t) in your everyday life, not just within relationships:
We cherish our freedom but we impose structure to regulate it. We value our security, but peace of mind can leave us yearning for mystery and spontaneity, facets of Eroticism which extend to all areas of life.
In our modern, start-up, bootstrap “hustle culture,” to our detriment our play needs a point. There’s not a lot of wiggle room for gettin’ your wiggle on. There’s money to be made. Ship it or zip it.
Symptoms: check. Cause: check. Prescription: ?
Esther Perel could provide a thousand ideas all of which start with a sense of novelty:
Trying something new—especially something creative—is a great way to jumpstart emotional connection… Imagine the most joyful feeling you can conjure. Take it to its extreme. What thoughts inspire that state of mind? How does it feel in your body? What might you feel motivated to do? Sometimes just taking this mindset of peaceful excitement with us as we continue in our routines can help refresh them. And when we’re ready to take it further, our imagination will be waiting, ready.
AKA: It’s time to reactivate that New Idea Obsession™ I had early last year. Reminisce how that felt, just like conjuring up an old crush.
This week, I’ve been handed and gifted a lot of signs from the universe to play again. It’s time to retrain my brain to acknowledge this right now is not a job. This is not a mountain to be conquered. This is not a bridge that needs building. Not right now.
Do I draw while wearing lingerie?
I don’t know but at this point I’m open to anything.
PS: This episode’s comic was drawn using one of my bag’s maybe-maybe-not helpful materials: a new iPad Pro + Apple Pencil. At first it felt very foreign and awkward to draw Toby this way and took several tries to get him “right” up there on that perch. The aspect I LOVED, however was how easy it was to color. It felt more playful with the Apple Pencil rather than a mouse in Photoshop (which feels like my day job).
I think we’re onto something here. Until Next Episode…
"The aspect I LOVED, however was how easy it was to color. It felt more playful with the Apple Pencil rather than a mouse in Photoshop (which feels like my day job)."
This is a real!