The Comedy Club

How do I get out of this creative block?

I wish I were exaggerating when I say this is something that’s been going on for years. Feeling, like, at the very edge of an absolutely unfathomable breakthrough—flood gates ready to give way to biblical deluge at any given moment….and then there’s…nothing?

Sometimes I get so consumed in whatever it is I’m trying to create, it’s all I can think about. Basic Pens, for instance. That idea was everything to me, for a little while. I couldn’t make myself do anything else. Every design wound up being a trashed logo. Every tagline wound up being for this stupid pen. No matter what, everything always just came back….to Basic.

And then one day I realized the well had run dry. Boom. Out of ideas. Done. I’m ruined.

Realizing that, I’m forced to reevaluate everything I’ve done to that point. And soon enough, I have to ask, has any of this been worth it? What am I actually doing?

The optimist in me wants to believe this is all just practice, and that one day I’ll be better able to realize how far I’ve come. That I’ll be real proud of all my progress and everything will just sort of fall into place from there. The pessimist in me’s worried this is the best I’ll ever be.

Do I actually believe that? Well, no, of course not. But it can be difficult for me to trace time in a way that doesn’t ultimately feel as if time has been wasted, you know? Maybe that’s just something I’ve got to get over.

But how, then? Could it be that I should simply embrace the inevitability that nothing will ever turn out exactly how I’d like? Could it be that there’s something more to this than throwing up my hands and saying, “alright, fine!” Because as much as I tell myself that this is okay, that I’ll get there eventually, I don’t know.

Takeaways here: I’m my own worst critic, and I really just need to give myself a break every now and then.

Also, itineraries suck.

More to come. Stay tuned.

-Ben