Chasing shiny things

Sometimes, I find myself in a peculiar mood: I wake up, hyped that I'm getting something awesome done today. I then spend the day juggling a few less-awesome things. Night comes around, and I realize I really want to do an awesome thing today like I've set out in the morning!

So, thus hyped to create something awesome, something great, I open up a text editor, or a code editor, or even an image editor, and... aand...

BAM! Nothing! Zilch! A blank!

I want to have had done some thing cool, to feel a sense of wonder, but.. nothing flows out of my fingers, so I just sit there, limp..

"Perhaps someone on the internet has done something cool" I think, but alas, I know the truth:

Everyone is stuck chasing after shiny things, yet so few of us actually finish something enough to share it.

So, this post is my shiny thing. If it reaches you, I don't want it to remind you that shiny things are possible if you just "get yourself together". Instead, I hope this blog post reminds that normal things are possible too. And that you don't need an awesome, slick, shiny, creative piece of art to be a someone, a person.

You see, I'm not drafting this post on my desk, late at night, where I usually get the whim to make "something amazing". Instead, I'm drafting this post on a bus, while the road is so twisty and turny that I can't do much else than blindtype, hitting keys at random and hoping I would be able to read the draft once I get back home.

A day's a day

There are many things one might get to do over the course of a day.

There are chores, that don't require particular creativity, just a bit of attention and exercise. They can be relaxing, perhaps even enjoyable given the way they leave the world a tiny bit more orderly. But most of the time, we treat them as distractions from both exciting and important tasks.

Then, there is the unglamorous, the drudgery, the repetitive tasks that have been worked on for weeks and need weeks more of work before they are complete. These are rarely relaxing and the enjoyment of finishing one of them is quite delayed; but they are important: things we've committed to, things that should be done to proceed with our current plans, things that might pay off in expanded perspective.

And finally, there's the mysterious, the exotic. The glamorous. The shiny things! Ideas that feel just barely out of reach, that we know we'd amazed to see realized in practice. Creative projects so novel, that they must, necessarily, lead to an instant five minutes of fame. Things that.. are exciting. Things that are at least creative and really really cool, even if they might be distractions from important tasks.

Shiny things are great, but so hard to make

It isn't before long after starting work on a shiny things that it turns into a trudge. Chances are, it requires more work than was initially apparent.

For example; if you tried to make a cool tiling, you would quickly find that not all sets of polygons you start with can be tiled; if you tried to make a novel solitaire card game, you would realize that most randomly-chosen rules are either too hard or too easy but never hit that sweet spot; and if you tried to write down a short story, most concepts don't have enough detail to write out at top speed.

As it has often been observed in speeches, in dances, in music, and presumably all performance arts: the only way to make a performance appear natural and effortless, is to invest a lot of effort in practicing for that performance. Presumably, the same holds for the creative disciplines: the only way for a novelist to be able to write a noir detective short story on a whim, a programmer to be able to code a fancy cellular automata in an hour, or an artist to be able to hit just the right curves of a sketch of an expressive, lively character, is with practice, practice, practice. And even with practice, most ideas done on a whim either don't work out at all, requiring more work in testing out alternatives, or require a lot of extra polish before they are neat and presentable.

Turns out, most "shiny things" are just normal things in disguise.

Why chase shiny things?

Even though I know that, I still find myself chasing shiny things. Way too often!

I wonder why, but then I remember the verse:

The soul of a lazy man desires, and has nothing; But the soul of the diligent shall be made rich. Proverbs 13:4, NKJV

So, I suppose it's laziness.

Laziness can be said to be a virtue, when it leads one to find a way to automate the busywork. (But then busywork is also a kind of laziness, avoiding the work of automating things!).
But laziness is usually a fault, a curse, when it tempts one to forgo useful work in a crazed binge for more—more enjoyment, more fulfillment—without the prerequisite steps to achieving it.

And when I realize that, I wish to break out of chasing shiny things and get back to being productive with the normal things before me.

I know of a few things that don't work:

• Labeling myself as lazy gets me nowhere. I've heard very few recommendations for laziness other than "well don't be", so it is not a particularly useful label to apply, overall.

• "Just doing stuff" is only somewhat effective. When I'm in my mood for chasing shiny things, the problem rarely goes away by forcing myself to do something non-shiny first: I do not do as good of a job with the normal thing I do instead, and I can't get away from feeling that the delayed shiny creative project would have been even better.
  In effect, this probably compounds the issue over time, both making me miserable and keeping my thoughts lingering on the wrong task.

• Watching "one more" movie, playing "one more" game, or doing any other similar supposedly-restful activity.. is not the solution either. It's never quite a problem of lacking rest, and experiencing cool things made by other people is never quite the same as getting a cool win oneself. So it only feeds back into discontent.

How to break away

However... there are things that work! Solutions that are not quick fixes, but by and by get me back to the right mindset for doing normal things:

• Finishing up a shiny thing; but only inasmuch as it inspires me to move on from it and leave it safely in the past.

• Getting away to a different environment. Taking a walk outside, visiting a new place, etc. Not ideal, since when I get back, I'm often exactly where I left, but while I'm away, I can at least think more clearly.

• Taking good care of oneself. Perhaps it serves as a reminder that the long-term matters, as I get myself into a better shape for the next week, month, or even year.

• Journalling. Similar to an observation by Benjamin Hollon, I find that journalling helps me more out of slump than sitting in front a computer might. In particular, brain-dumping everything I've committed to doing about usually reveals that I have a sufficiently important normal thing that I can prioritize for the day, and reminds me of why I am trying to do it, which is often enough to motivate me to focus on that instead of distracting myself with the promise of more shiny things.

If I can summarize that list, the one key thing that helps me move on is changing perspective.

Namely, I need to remind myself that I'm not here to make a thing so shiny that everyone else is in shock and awe. I don't need to prove that I can do another shiny thing; I've done plenty, and I'll do plenty more. Even if I were making something shiny, I should know that shiny things never happen overnight, on a whim; they take careful planning and repeated, consistent work.

Instead,

• There are a few key projects I've taken on. Without love and care, they won't ever see the light of day.
• There are a few key people in my life. Without love and care, they won't ever reach their full potential.
• There are only a few key hours in a day. Without love and care, they will most certainly be missed by me.

The promise of a shiny thing is that once it's done, I would be accomplished, perhaps admired, certainly congratulated. But inasmuch there is joy in such things, there is much more joy in attending diligently after normal things and breaking the icy dejection of needing to chase yet another shiny thing high.
And loving others and being loved by others is a whole other level of caring on top of that.

Conclusion

So, you still wish to make a shiny thing, a whole creative project on a whim?

It's probably harder than you think. It's never done just on a whim. (This blog post? I'm currently rewriting it just so it makes sense as more than a journal entry!) If a creative project is to become something awesome, it will need more than an afternoon.

If it's something that you do for rest, then rest. Making something creative while resting is a far better way to rest than just passively consuming content. And if it's for a break of a drudgery, boring task, then.. take a break, but not before you do a bit of that important task, just so it keeps going. But otherwise, if it's a distraction, consider the perspective and mindset in which you are doing it. Short-terms wins are nice, but even the short-term win of finishing a journal entry can satisfy a momentary need. Long-term wins are far more fruitful, despite the work and risk they take, but doing one takes perspective.

And finally don't forget that you are you, regardless of the shiny things you have or have not accomplished. You won't become a better person by finishing something (at best, you would become a better you through working on something), and you won't become appreciably more worth-it by piling on another shiny thing in a portfolio: for you are already worth so much. So, take care of yourself, love the things you do. Far shinier than a mere whim.

This has been my 21st post of #100DaysToOffload. I'm far behind, on account of leaving my blogging routine in pursuit of shiny things. Yet, I expect just writing this article to have a similar habit-building effect as my article on washing dishes did.

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