LETTERS TO MY CREATIVE SELF: THE 19TH LETTER

Creativity Doesn’t Always Look Like A Masterpiece

Creativity in the In-Between: What we miss when we only celebrate masterpieces

bright sunny art

Perfectionism is the enemy of art: it stifles the creative impulse. ~ Julia Cameron

Usually, when we visualise Creativity in our minds, we fantasise that it must look like —

a finished painting leaning proudly against a wall. or like a published essay, or a book, a viral post, a standing ovation, or a perfectly edited reel with cinematic lighting.

You know what I mean, the entire flashing lights, glamour and thundering applause! And you, standing there, probably looking all bashful and professional under the camera.

But all that is, is a glamourised version of creativity. It is curated, the kind made to post online. That is what non-creators think creativity looks like, and social media has only helped in deepening the illusion, the delusion.

So no, it doesn’t always look like that. In fact, it doesn’t look anything like that most of the time!

I’ll tell you what it does look like,

Sometimes it looks like waking up early, all pumped to be productive, bustling with energy and eagerness, only to end up staring at the blank page or screen for hours on end.

Sometimes it looks like opening your document, typing a single sentence, deleting it, typing another, deleting that too. Groaning in frustration.

At times, it looks like rereading your own words and feeling nothing. Or worse — feeling utterly embarrassed by them!

But prithee, don’t you see,

Your fear of looking stupid is holding you back!

Oh, but you do not recognise it within you because that Fear dons a clever disguise. It calls itself perfectionism. It whispers seductively in your ear that you should wait until the idea is better, clearer, more impressive.

But perfectionism is really just fear with good PR.

The cure, inconveniently enough, is simple: make bad art.

“How to defeat perfectionism: make shitty art. Do it every day.”

And it may sound like a joke, but it’s honestly not! It is a discipline!

Because the funny thing about creativity is that it almost always begins in awkwardness. The first sketch is clumsy, graceless. The first draft is chaotic, upside-down. Your first attempt will likely usually end up looking nothing like what you imagined in your head!

And hey, that’s totally fine!

In fact, “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep,” as Scott Adams once put it.

And sometimes,…sometimes it looks like saving drafts of your work that you never end up posting.

You tell yourself they aren’t ready. Not beautiful enough to deserve the limelight. Not sharp enough. Not clear enough. Not profound enough. You compare them to other people’s polished work — foolishly forgetting you are comparing your unfinished thoughts to someone else’s consummate museum piece!

Still, you save them.

You don’t delete them. This is the curious thing.

Though it makes you blush and leaves you mortified, you never entirely cease your efforts.

You keep the files.

That is very important

You store everything you don’t share, even the ones you probably hate, why?

Creativity, in its most honest, most raw form, often resembles something akin to uncertainty. It’s always there. hunting you like a ghost. The Ghost of Uncertainty. It looks like wanting to try again, but not knowing how to. It looks like scrolling through your own work history, wondering when the magic left.

But the magic never leaves. This is the truth. It just… sometimes refuses to perform on command.

There is valour in not quitting. All those times you saved those works you were too embarrassed or unsure of to post, that was you refusing to give up, choosing to be valiant.

You were brave when you whispered to yourself, “Maybe tomorrow,” instead of declaring the whole effort pointless while yelling, “I’m done!”

You are brave

when you open the notebook again.

when returning to the canvas.

In clicking “new document” after the last one probably almost killed you.

We have romanticised creativity into spectacle. We celebrate the launch, the reveal, the breakthrough moment. We do not talk enough about the long stretches of doubt. The creative limbo. The dreary season where you are neither inspired nor infertile — only present.

And presence, I have come to realise, is in itself a form of sweet devotion, one which is indeed beautiful to witness. Like a person would for their one true love.

You showed up.

Even if you produced nothing at the end.

Even if all you did was sit with the desire to create.

That desire, that passion which compels you, matters more than anything in the whole wide world!

There are days when creativity is loud and generous. Ideas spill out effortlessly. It feels nearly spiritual. You feel chosen. Capable. Certain.

And then, there are days when creativity is a weak pulse. Barely any signs of life. Feeble. You wonder whether it ever belonged to you at all. If you had any right to even once consider yourself gifted, talented, special. What a joke.

Those days are truly proof that you care. They are not proof of failure.

A person who has truly resigned does not feel the ache to try again. The ache itself is evidence of something alive inside you.

Creativity is not only the act of producing something spectacular every single time. It is the decision to remain in relationship with your own imagination — even when it genuinely frustrates you.

Especially when it frustrates you.

A marriage of sorts. For better, for worse.

It is indeed brave to sit before a blank page staring back at you waiting to be filled with your thoughts, and not slam the laptop shut forever.

It is brave to keep drafts no one has seen.

It is brave to admit, “I don’t know what I’m doing,” and continue anyway.

It is brave to not quit.

We are often hardest on ourselves during our most invisible efforts. But we don’t know, or we forget, that growth is never immediately apparent while it is in the process of happening. Roots seldom look impressive while they are growing underground.

They are still growing. You are still growing

Creativity always looks like not knowing what you’re doing.

That’s the process. You must never ever consider it a failure.

“It’s okay not to know what you’re doing.”

Children understand this instinctively. They draw strange animals with purple skies and green oceans and never stop to ask whether the drawing is “good.”

They’re playing.

And play, according to comedian and writer John Cleese, is the real heart of creativity:

“Creativity is not the possession of some special talent. It’s about the willingness to play.”

Somewhere along the course of growing up, we forget that.

We become afraid of looking foolish.

But don’t you know, art has always been a deviant rebellion against ordinary logic. As the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once noted:

“We have art so that we shall not die of reality.”

Reality is heavy. Predictable. Dull most of the time.

Art bends it.

Art exaggerates it. Mocks it. Escapes it.

In fact, Nietzsche said something even more provocative:

“No artist tolerates reality.”

Artists reshape it.

But reshaping reality needs freedom. The painter Henri Matisse warned that the artist must resist becoming trapped:

“An artist must never be a prisoner… prisoner of style, prisoner of reputation, prisoner of success.”

And perfectionism is one of the most comfortable prisons ever invented.

It convinces you that you’re protecting your standards when you’re really protecting your fear.

Better advice might come from filmmaker Tim Burton, who said simply:

“Don’t worry about how you should draw it. Just draw it the way you see it.”

That’s the entire secret.

Draw it how you see it.

Write it how you feel it.

Make it even if you’re completely confused. Even if it sounds absolutely bonkers!

Even the surrealist painter Salvador Dalí knew perfection was a myth:

“Have no fear of perfection — you’ll never reach it.”

I myself find this statement incredibly comforting.

Why wait for it?

Better to make something imperfect than nothing at all!

Or, as the painter Bob Ross liked to say with his gentle optimism:

“We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents.”

The truth is, creativity seldom ever arrives fully developed.

It grows through errors.

Through experiments.

Through wandering.

Through trying things that don’t work.

Steve Jobs once explained it:

“Creativity is just connecting things.”

You try something.

You notice something.

You combine something.

It’s like playing

Eventually, the pieces begin to connect, begin to speak to one another, begin to make sense out of the chaos.

But that will only happen only if you keep showing up.

If all you did today was think about creating, that counts.

Even if all you did today was stare at a blank page.

If all you did was reopen an old file or draft and close it again, that counts.

If you only managed to murmur inwardly, “Maybe tomorrow,” that counts too.

Slow progress is still progress.

You are in process. A sacred process.

You have to learn today that creativity will not always be loud or noticeable.

Mostly, it exists in the unnoticeable persistence.

Sometimes it is pure chaos.

A disorganised, confusing, half-finished middle where you’re not sure what you’re doing, but you refuse to stop.

The artist Joan Miró once wrote something beautifully simple:

“A simple line painted with the brush can lead to freedom and happiness.”

Happiness.

Just a line.

Just a sentence.

Just a sketch.

Sometimes that’s enough to begin.

So make the terrible, awful, embarrassing piece.

Write that imperfect, incomplete paragraph.

Paint the strange picture, that weird vision, that quirky concept.

You don’t have to be a master to make art. (No, seriously, calm down, maestro)

The joy is in the madness — be like children playing with colours.

And if today’s effort looks small, to such a degree that you feel guilty for not doing more, remember this:

Refusing to stop is couragous.

You showed up.

In trepidation. Before you were completely ready. In saying “I’ll try again tomorrow.”

And tomorrow, if you wake up and stare at the blank page again, understand that you are not failing at creativity. You are living inside it.

And that, bizarrely enough, is how most masterpieces begin.

Tag someone who needs this reminder.

The book, LETTERS TO MY CREATIVE SELF, is a soft space for moments like this. It’s a collection of my thoughts and love letters to creatives who, like me, have ever experienced feelings of burnout, creative blocks, or quietly mourned the loss of their art.

Letters to My Creative Self

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