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VulpesHilarianus
Y'know, I honestly didn't think common sense was a superpower. And then I noticed that myself and everyone else I know lacks it.

Age 29, Male

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Somewhere Beneath England

Joined on 8/3/12

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When You Have The Urge But Not The Motivation.

Posted by VulpesHilarianus - November 12th, 2016


So for a while I've been jumping from project to project. Keeping multiple things running at once and moving either onto a new project or returning to an old one as I see fit or as I learn new things. It's how I plan, it's how I work, and it's how I keep from burning out. But lately I've been having problems. I've got too many things running, and I feel I've put too many things in storage. I see what I'm doing, and I realize I'm not getting anything done because as soon as I get bored or start to slow down I move to something else. At this point I don't know what else to do, as it's how I've been doing things for close to ten years now. And I feel that if I focus on one project I'll burn myself out faster than normal.

What's compounding the fact is that I'm constantly used to learning new things as I rotate what I'm working on. What worked for one project might not work for another, and I need to learn a new way to deal with this new problem or retool the methods I already use. And I've learned, and I've honed, and I've advanced far faster than some other people who do what I do. And I realize that at times, I'm going to plateau. I'm going to hit a stretch where I'm not going to advance any further for a while, and I need to deal with that.

And I've hit the longest plateau I've seen in a while. Months. Almost a year at this point. And I fear I'm going backwards in some respects. My work now seems worse than before. My anatomy studies are all wrong. My music sounds empty. My writing is just me complaining. My work in 3D is just me meddling with textures. I'm a mess. I haven't cut my hair in forever. I haven't shaved in months. I've barely ventured outside to go driving, which is something I love to do. All of this because I want to beat this plateau. All because this is the hardest barrier I've faced in my career as an artist so far, and because I want to perfect my skills even further and not stagnate.

I've been stagnating.

And I know why.

I sit, huddled at my workstation, drinking obscene amounts of Pepsi, working in FL Studio, in Paint Tool SAI, in Blender, in Notepad... And everything that happens never gets released. Because it never gets finished. All of my projects, all of my work, all of my scraps, they all get left in limbo because I never bother to finish them. There's always something to add. Always that idea that I could come back and notice a flaw to fix. Always that nagging sense that it's not the best it could be.

And it's causing me to stop, right there in the middle of the plateau. Right there with the mountains behind me, more ahead of me, and desert all around. I feel like I'm in a safe spot when I'm not. I feel best when I'm working, and climbing the mountains to release something is extremely hard. I'm working myself in circles, following my own footsteps, instead of choosing one direction and following it.

I'ma stop. I'ma stop. 'Cause this is starting to piss me off.


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