I have a problem.
My wife really enjoys watching movies. It rarely matters what type of movie that’s on, she seems to like all kinds. We have lots of movie channels, a subscription to Netflix and we’re regulars at our nearby Redbox kiosk.
This isn’t to say that she’s lazy. She’s the opposite of lazy. She’s the reason our house looks like a respectable home. I get home late-ish each night and she always has something great ready to eat when I get home. Watching movies is her hobby. Getting lost in fantasy worlds or murder mysteries is how she unwinds.
I wish this were me. My problem is that I have no way to unwind.
It’s only now and then that she asks if I want to watch a movie with her. Aside from my bizarre pickiness about movies, I tend to want to steer our time together towards other things. Let’s play a game. Let’s catch up on some DVR’d television shows. Let’s go for a walk.
It’s not that I hate movies; it’s that I have a constant need to make things.
It’s rare that I can sit through a full two-hour movie without doing something else at the same time. I’ll grab a pad of paper and doodle nonsense sketches. Maybe I fire up Photoshop on my laptop and start fleshing out ideas. Sometimes I’ll start writing something for this site. I may start researching some new project online.
I have an addiction to creating things.
Time spent not creating things too often feels like time that’s being wasted.
How Would You Know?
I know that I am the way I am because I can clearly recognize the times when I’m not like this.
I burn out just like anyone else, but my tolerance level is much higher than the average person, and the fall isn’t as far for me. Feeling “burnt out” means that I instantly find Scarlette and ask if she wants to watch a movie with me. The feeling may last two or three hours, so I have to act quickly before the need comes back.
Output
On average, I publish a fair amount of content online each year — tweets, articles, plugins, doodles and the like. That said, you wouldn’t believe how much I don’t put online. Most of what I publish is done to prove to myself that I’m not being lazy, as people will only know you for the things you accomplish. I put out enough stuff to give people the idea that I’m productive.
If you look at, read and use all of the stuff that I make, you’re only experiencing the tip of the iceberg. I’ve had a number of people compliment a lot of my work. While I’m always thankful and humbled by it, what they don’t understand is the quantity of work that I produce that they’ll never see. In a good year I may post 5% of the stuff I make. I only put my best and/or most interesting work forward.
This makes me look better than I am. Ask any of my friends and they’ll say that I’m really good at just about everything I try. That’s kind of them, but this isn’t true at all. I’m not accidentally really good at everything I try, but I work so hard to get good at everything I show you. (The proverbial you, anyone that stumbles across my stuff.)
I spent hundreds of hours building things that no one will ever see. It’s not stressful, but it’s tiring. It’s not hard, it’s exhausting.
Furthermore, I have a strong dislike for being bad at things. I constantly try to expand in directions that I think will prove beneficial in the future. I develop a wide base of core skills that I can combine at the right moments to do something great. Nearly every direction I steer is over-calculated.
The Problem
For one thing, I have a tendency to start many projects that never go anywhere. I like working on projects, but finishing them is rarely a priority. It’s the fun of the journey for me, but it’s difficult to come up with reasons that I rarely ship anything.
Also, I’ll pick up a bunch of freelance work and then a big project will hit for my day job. At first it makes sense to get paid for doing things with my hands, until I realize that I need to ship 90% of what I create. I work too many hours and I push myself near my limits. I start dreaming about the projects I’m working on. I can’t escape them, they’re always in the forefront of my mind.
I’m so used to not needing to polish everything since most of it never goes anywhere, when it all does have to go online, I panic. I get aggravated at my first or second (or third) attempts at things as they’re rarely public-ready. I plow through it and tinker my work up to the deadline. I get things done, but constantly question myself.
A Blessing & A Curse
Knowing all of this, I can create great things on demand (thus, the wide skill base), but the timeline must be short and the odds have to seem unlikely. The silver lining in my addiction is that I perform best when it seems like I shouldn’t.
It’s ugly to watch.
I get snippy with those around me and go into a hole.
It’s only in the eleventh hour that something good seems to appear in my head. Everything falls into place and I put my head down and plow through it. The results: generally good.
Not Shipping Is Not a Waste of Time
Even if I never show you most of the things that I make, I don’t consider that wasted time. I’ve been making things, which is all I want to do. And while I only show maybe 5%, that doesn’t mean the other 95% is bad. I have a lot of great things that I’ve never shared with anyone, the time or place hasn’t been right (yet).
I like to think of things like a superhero montage. Right now I’m in the training part, and when I’m ready I’ll save the world from boredom, boring and mediocrity. I’m always “almost there,” hopefully I can reach a turning point soon.
Oh, And Then There’s Minecraft
By now, you’ve probably heard of Minecraft — the game that gives you an infinite world with infinite possibilities. You might imagine my draw to this game. With a couple clicks, I have a unique world to tear apart and rebuild all on my own.
It’s my own virtual paradise.
I’ve tried to explain the game to Scarlette; to outsiders it looks like a bunch of endless digging and weird growling noises from monsters. She asks me what the point of the game is, and that’s the thing: there really isn’t a point.
Well, technically the point is to survive, but that’s easy. Find wood and coal, make a torch, dig a hole in a wall and block half of the doorway: done. Once you’ve mastered that, the point is to re-create the world in your image. Minecraft is actually a great way to get out my needs of creation with one large problem: I’ll never have anything to show for it.
Sure, I can take screenshots, but those are worthless.
No End In Sight
One of the things I’ve worked on over the years but have never figured out is a way to fix this addiction. It’s not a simple matter of forcing myself to not make things, as that just makes me angry, uncomfortable and depressed. I’m learning to live with it. As I tell myself, there are worse addictions out there, at least this one isn’t killing me.
Only Using My Powers For Good
This year will start a transition to being ready to share with the world all of the things I can do. I’m looking to focus my attention on ways that I can help people and maybe make a couple bucks at the same time. I hope to give a couple of talks around the area. I have a lot of things I want to learn with the hope of expanding my ability to create in the future.
I want to share more of me with you.
Maybe someday I’ll learn to battle this addiction to create, or maybe someday I’ll at least make it profitable. Whatever it is and whatever it takes, I have a long road ahead of me.
