You’ve got to get obsessed and stay obsessed.

John Irving

Getting started is the easy part.

Coincidentally, this is also the part we tend to put the most thought and effort. To help that along, there are endless flash in the pan ideas to feed that initial burst of inspiration.

Staying obsessed… keeping at it… pushing through… disciplining yourself to stay the course…

This is what separates the breakthroughs from the dreamers.

It separates those who consider it a part of their life and those who look upon it with pangs of regret.

If anything, we should stop looking at what motivates us and start looking at what keeps us going. What is it that can get us to set a goal so ridiculously high and seemingly almost unachievable, then pursue it obsessively at all costs?

Answer that question and a whole new world opens up to you.

The common expression for someone on the precipice of burnout is “burning the candle at both ends.”

Right now, we are living in a world where our own candles have multiple endpoints that are constantly burning because it’s demanded of us. If we’re not burning, we’re done.

This is my issue with the hyper focus on building resilience (in the workforce or our schools) and wellness initatives. We’re not so much worried anymore that the wick is aflame from every which point, but how strong the wax is to stop it from burning so much.

Maybe if we demanded less of every candle, each one would last longer while continuing to serve its purpose.

The trick is not becoming a writer. The trick is staying a writer.

Harlan Ellison

Day after day
Week after week
Year after year
Story after story

How many writers disappear after ten years?
Musicians?
Comedians?
Artists?

While the creative side will always be with a person, especially if they were immersed within their field, you will rarely see them produce more than a memory of an earlier time.

This is the challenge of creativity. It’s not the creative part itself, but the commitment to keep at it.

When you want a cup of coffee, the purest way to drink it is black.
Nothing in it.
Letting the flavour stand on its own.
Tasting it for what it is and nothing more.

But for those who don’t find it palatable, there are many ways to doctor it up:
Add sugar, milk, cream, foam, flavouring, syrup, chocolate mix, blended, more water and give it fancy names.

You still get the coffee essence (and caffeine), but without the strong smack to the taste buds.

The same can be said for a truth we’re trying to deliver.

We spend an inordinate amount of time trying to doctor up our truth to make it more palatable for people to take in. It’s a good way to get them to taste the message.

At some point, though, you’ll need to serve it to them black. If you don’t, they may never know what you really want to say.

Nobody reads books anymore.
If they do read, they don’t read fantasy.
If they do read fantasy, the long, epic fantasy genre died in the nineties.
There isn’t an audience for it.
No publisher wants that anymore.

Good thing Brandon Sanderson didn’t listen to any of those criticisms. His kickstarter campaign for a special edition of his epic fantasy, The Way of Kings, hit $4 million in one day.

While I’m sure there will be some who attempt to deconstruct his process and emulate what he did in hopes of similar results, they miss the big picture:

He did what he loved and found an audience for his work.

Despite the repeated attempts by major conglomerates to manufacture a mainstream interest, it’s the niche audiences that show up and prove somebody still wants it.

And that audience is usually much larger than people think.

It takes only minutes every day to scan your lawn for any weeds, removing any that have cropped up.

If you don’t…

Those minutes turn into “later this week.”

Later this week turns into “I’ll take care of it on the weekend.”

Taking care of it on the weekend turns into “I should get to it this month.”

Each time a decision is made to do it later, the time commitment becomes longer and excuses become easier. It’s harder to find the motivation to block out hours of time to get the job done when minutes was all it took in the first place.

Eventually, the lawn is infested with weeds and no longer controllable unless drastic measures are taken.

It wasn’t the action of a single day that caused the outcome, but the compound effect of repeatedly neglecting one.

A 3m diving board is a thrill to jump off.

However, the decision to make that first leap comes down to the mentality when approaching it.

There are some who see it as an exciting adrenaline rush and leap off without thinking twice, absorbing as much fun on the way down as they can.

The rest must face the enemy inside their own heads, which puts them into complete analysis mode. Their brains go into overdrive as they make the decision, pitting their fears against their desires.

This results in one of two outcomes: jump or don’t jump.

The decision to jump, which could take a wide range of time, quickly builds a re-enforcement loop that allows the jump to happen again:
“I did it–what was I so afraid of?”

The decision not to jump also builds a re-enforcement loop:
“I can’t do it,” or “I’ll do it another time.”

When it comes to the decisions of life, the first group that jump without thinking twice are our trailblazers. They just do, see where it leads and are usually the people we wish to be.

However, the second group is where we usually end up and if we’re not careful, we can spend our whole lives making excuses.

Overcoming the decision paralysis requires some emulation:
Jump the moment you hear your brain fighting against your desires. Adjust afterwards.

Ready, fire, aim.

In watching this interview with Elon Musk on the Joe Rogan podcast, the comment that stuck out to me most happened at this point.

In describing his Neuralink and its capabilities for the future, Musk comments that language is a barrier to explaining complex ideas. An idea must be compressed, simplified, communicated and then it is interpreted and decompressed by the receiver.

This is a brilliant insight for many reasons.

For starters, it teaches that complex ideas cannot be fully understood with simplistic analogies. They help understanding, but don’t teach it in a way to elucidate its many facets.

The danger of constantly oversimplifying ideas is readily observable. People have a misguided sense of knowledge about a topic they know little about, but posture as they do because they saw it explained on a meme/tweet/info graphic/five-minute video, etc.

In my favourite category of religious expression that is mysticism, it applies in a profound way.

A completely spiritual experience is impossible to describe, leaving the realm of the mystic clouded in poetic language because that’s the best thing available. It helps, but it doesn’t capture the depth of its complexity.

My friend and co-author Matti Silver recently read a fantasy book I drafted. His observations are uncanny (in many ways) and asked me whether the way my characters use their magic is what I experience during meditation/prayer.

Re-reading my descriptions of those events, I marvelled at my unconscious attempt to describe the experience. However, the description still wouldn’t get the reader to feel the same way and I resorted to figurative language to help bridge the gap.

Then there’s the barrier of language between two people who can’t seem to communicate on the same level and always seem to be talking about two different things while frustrated the other person fails to see their viewpoint.

An example of this is any couple, ever!

Many of our communication issues could be solved if there was some way to transcend language.

It’s the best thing we have, but it’s still a barrier.