a rough write

i somewhat understand why artists have peaks, and then we don't hear from them for some time. nothing in mass media about their new single or album. no new leading roles, mostly obscure projects or relegated to the supporting cast. i feel as though our best work are such a rarity, and consistency ideally yields above-average output. perhaps relative to our best, even great works become comparably mediocre, especially if our sample size is limited to our own body of work.

the ethereal concept of "creative juice" feels real. or at least easy to blame when i can't put out decent art. i call it art, but it feels pretentious to consider myself an "artist", a writer, perhaps is more appropriate. it's just easier to type the three letters that comprise the word "art" - and there goes my autism deciding to over explain an unnecessary detail. perhaps, the broader our knowledge, the deeper our wisdom, the more we are capable of overthinking things. it seems as though that the really good ones are those that can quiet an overthinking mind, and just focusing on getting things done. perhaps overthinking is a crutch to make ourselves feel as though we have control or we're working our way closer to finishing the job - a sort of artificial and wholly arbitrary metric of progress.

perhaps the more we get done in life and upon retrospect, the more we become afraid of producing something comparably lesser than what we consider our best so far. it might objectively be good, we might've carried lessons from the past that make us more effective or efficient, but it could very well be a kind of conditional failure dependent on whether it lives up to the shadows of our past. it's terrifying, but i feel as though we can't help but let our past loom over our present. but the more we continue to practice this, the heavier our forward steps become.