I’m reading “Creative Quest” by Questlove, and I’m struck by his words on page 23:

all people-who are all creative people, at least in some respect…have to learn to locate their ideas, how to execute them, how to feel about them once they’re released into the world, and how to cope with the reactions of others.

I feel like this is good advice for anyone because it addresses the foundational human process of being human. We all have ideas, but sometimes struggle to find them. Once we have an idea, we sometimes struggle to execute them, for a variety of reasons. Sometimes we don’t have the skills yet, sometimes we lose inspiration before execution completes. If things align and we’re able to complete the execution, then an object is out in the world. Do we release it widely or hold it closely? Or delay the release until we have more, or better versions? And if we finally release the object (narrowly or widely), we will have people who will react to it. They may respond well or poorly, or not at all. The latter may be hardest to tolerate, since all the effort you put in feels like you’re just yelling into the void, and that you’re invisible. This can feel like the effort and time is wasted, which is one of the harder feelings that I’ve gone through. But what I’m also realizing is that paying attention to those feelings will help you figure out where to go next.

Since I’m writing these as notes to myself and others who might benefit from reading this at some point in the future, I’m not going to wrap this up particularly cleanly, except to say that I hope that this is helpful to those who read it.