{"id":11805,"date":"2024-12-06T05:26:21","date_gmt":"2024-12-06T05:26:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visakanv.com\/1000\/?p=11805"},"modified":"2024-12-06T05:26:22","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T05:26:22","slug":"0877-0878-on-finish-what-you-started","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visakanv.com\/1000\/0877-0878-on-finish-what-you-started\/","title":{"rendered":"0877 + 0878 \u2013 on “finish what you started”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

life as a stressful mess of unfinished projects\u2026 inefficient soap placement\u2026 flinching at others who bemoan their unfinished projects\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I. well-intentioned mess reduction<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s something that my experience has taught me to be true: I can\u2019t do much with stale inspiration. I was going to say \u201chere\u2019s something I believe to be true\u201d, but the truth about my belief here is messier than that. I keep wishing it wasn\u2019t true. I wish inspiration lasted forever. I find it upsetting to accept that that I might have held on to something for too long, to the point that it\u2019s begun to \u2018decay\u2019. It\u2019s essentially a \u2018sunk costs\u2019 problem, like when the fruits you bought have gone bad. \u201cI thought this was going to be a good idea, and some time has passed and I\u2019m no longer excited about it, but goddamnit I\u2019m going to try and follow through on it regardless!\u201d It rarely, rarely ever works. Mostly it just serves to make me frustrated with myself, my work and my process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think part of this is also that\u2026 when I was growing up, I endured a lot of preaching and moralizing about the importance of finishing what you start. I didn\u2019t like it, and I wanted it to be wrong, but it seemed like there must be something true about it. After all, I seldom finished what I started, and I generally failed to achieve the levels of success I fantasized about achieving. So it seemed fair to assume that \u201cthe reason my life is a stressful, unpleasant mess is that I don\u2019t finish what I start.\u201d From there it felt natural to think, \u201cIf only I could finish what I started, my life would not be a mess. Therefore, I should push myself to finish what I start.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sounds broadly reasonable, right? But looking back on it all 20+ years later, I see that it was a very clunky and ineffective approach to things, and I\u2019m still paying the price for it, by behaving in ways that don\u2019t actually help me achieve my goals. It reminds me of how easily we get used to some inefficient configuration in our workflow because of some semi-random, arbitrary reasons, and then we just stick with that way of doing things because it\u2019s familiar, and the cost of changing feels too high. And then, when we finally do make the change, our old muscle memory still kicks in and we reach for the inefficient old pattern. I witnessed this play out in a very trivial way that\u2019s nonetheless quite illustrative: where I put my soap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

II. inefficient soap placement<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In my bathroom, I had never really thought about where I ought to put my bottle of soap. I just bought it one day and stuck it in the shower and moved on to thinking about other things. But one day I read something about ergonomics that got me thinking about my daily behavior patterns, and I went about my day looking at how I arranged things. And it struck me that, goodness, my soap bottle was positioned in the most tedious possible location on the rack I have hanging on my bathroom wall. To get the soap for my daily showers, I had to twist my arm in a somewhat odd angle to get around other lesser used bottles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was in a particularly inspired mood to arrange things better for myself in every aspect of my life, and so I looked at the rack, moved my arm around, and realized that I could put the pump on the near-side of the rack rather than the far-side, making it substantially easier for me to get a pump of soap. I was very pleased with myself for doing this. And still, the next 3-4 times I took a shower, I found myself nonetheless reaching out awkwardly for the old location of where the soap used to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It takes time to adapt to a new system, even if it\u2019s a better system.<\/strong> And there are switching costs to that adaptation. For a period of time, becoming more efficient requires becoming more inefficient. This in turn is now reminding me of an anecdote I heard from a woman who was a competitive swimmer in her youth. I don\u2019t think she made it to the Olympics, but she was winning regional competitions and such. She told me that she had some inefficiencies in her form that she never got around to correcting\u2026 until many years after she had stopped swimming competitively, when she was older, and had children, and found herself drawn to swimming again for recreational reasons. This time, since she wasn\u2019t under any particular pressure to perform, she decided to take it slow and really address the issues in her form. Once she did that, she claimed she was then able to swim faster than she ever did.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What a whipcrack of an anecdote! I find myself freshly inspired by it to reevaluate my own behavior patterns. Which is something foundational that I want to really I want to get across here. Inspiration is more like a phoenix than a piece of bread. It might go stale for a while, but it might also<\/p>\n\n\n\n

III. flinching from dissatisfaction<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Stated by itself, \u201cfinish what you start\u201d is obviously a generally good thing. It\u2019s annoying to have lots of started-but-unfinished projects lying around. And I personally feel myself flinching whenever I encounter other creatives who are commiserating about that state of affairs with an attitude of helplessness. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s something I ought to investigate deeper and address. I\u2019ll mark that as a \u2018maybe\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do think\u2026 if I were in a better state with my own projects, I probably wouldn\u2019t flinch at other people\u2019s responses to their projects. I\u2019d just smile and nod and give them the space they need to work through their own process. But instead I flinch, I think because it reminds me that I\u2019m dissatisfied with my own situation. And then it\u2019s very tempting to transpose my dissatisfaction with myself onto others, and scold them for how they are dealing with their issues poorly, instead of doing the harder work of dealing with my own issues well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once I articulate this for myself, the flinch actually tends to dissipate. I can feel it right now. Like, \u201cOh, I\u2019m actually just dissatisfied with myself. I can address that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IV. tunnel vision<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

That said, I don\u2019t know if \u201cfinish what you\u2019ve started before you start something else\u201d is always<\/em> a good thing. It\u2019s definitely a viable strategy, especially for a certain type of person operating in a certain type of context. But I don\u2019t think I\u2019m that kind of person. I\u2019m someone who likes to do lots of light sketches of something from many different angles in many different styles before I eventually do a \u2018final\u2019 product of some kind, if possible. Sometimes I like to try and do something in one fell swoop. Sometimes I like to tinker on a thing for a long time. I think there have been many instances in my past where, if I had not abandoned something that I had started but lost interest in, I would have deprived myself of more interesting and rewarding opportunities that were around me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider the problem of \u2018tunnel vision\u2019, where we might be so fixated on arriving at a particular solution to a problem, that we spend lots of time and resources on it, and we fail to notice that there\u2019s actually a different solution to the problem entirely that\u2019s far better. We are once again in \u201cexplore vs exploit\u201d territory. I think this is one of those domains where there are no universal rules; there\u2019s always some context where breaking the rules results in a better outcome than following them. And then you can get into meta-analysis about which context is which, and how you might want to spend more time in some contexts and not others, etc etc. The whole time you do this, you wanna be careful not to lose sight of the original goal, even as you hold it somewhat lightly. One of the worst outcomes in the short run is failing to solve a simple but consequential problem, because you spent all your time doing a bunch of analysis instead. But note that I say \u2018in the short run\u2019, because in the long run that analysis might actually come in handy. And it\u2019s seldom the specifics of the analysis themselves, but rather the patterns and habits of thought that produced that analysis, that then adapt to the next situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s circle back around again. Earlier I said,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u2026 it seemed probable that \u201cthe reason my life is a stressful, unpleasant mess is that I don\u2019t finish what I start.\u201d From there it felt natural to think, \u201cIf only I could finish what I started, my life would not be a mess. Therefore, I should push myself to finish what I start.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I added \u201cstressful, unpleasant\u201d after first writing \u201cthe reason my life is a mess\u201d, because I wanted to clarify that messes don\u2019t have to be intrinsically bad things. We can learn to be comfortable with some degree of mess. In fact I think many people would acknowledge that there\u2019s something kinda stressful about an environment that\u2019s too immaculate. Like if you go to someone\u2019s house and everything is pristine white; you worry that you might accidentally leave a mark on something. A comfortable environment is one where people don\u2019t have to worry about causing a disruption to some hyper-precise order. A few books and trinkets lying around, a blanket on the sofa that\u2019s imperfectly folded. A little bit of disarray is preferable to rigid perfection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

V. disorientation and \u2018wasted effort\u2019<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

So what was my issue, really? What\u2019s wrong with having a mess of unfinished projects lying around? There are real answers to that question, but looking back I realize I didn\u2019t articulate it properly, and so I was floundering in confusion. The real problem is feeling directionless, feeling lost, having no sense of progression, feeling like all of my efforts were being expended in dissipative ways that amounted to nothing, rather than adding up<\/em> to something. Once I articulate this\u2013 even right now\u2013 I feel a sense of relief. Oh, that\u2019s the actual puzzle to solve. I need a sense of direction, something to orient by, some sense of progression, and some sense of cumulativeness. One of the ways I accomplished this for myself in my writing was to start a sideproject called 1000wordvomits<\/a>, where I set out to write 1000 stream-of-consciousness essays of 1000 words each. I started this project in 2012. There were times where I\u2019d write a lot\u2013 I think sometime in 2015 I once wrote over 50,000 words in a single month. And there have been entire months were I wrote nothing. Yet, since the point of the project is simply to write, the main feeling I have when I think about it is fondness, appreciation, respect, admiration, gratitude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been 12 years and I still have 124 more essays to go. I intend to finish it eventually, but I\u2019m not in a rush to finish it right away. I didn\u2019t know when I was starting out precisely how the journey would go. I envisioned it as a kind of personal odyssey, a journey that would transform me. I said that I looked forward to meeting who I would become at the end of it. And now I can look back and notice that I was a slightly different person roughly every 100,000 words or so. Over the course of the project I got married, got a job, left the job, became self-employed, wrote two books, travelled a few times, had a baby. I\u2019ve just\u2026 really enjoyed having this project in my life. I\u2019ll admit, from time to time I do find myself thinking \u201cgod I wish I was done with that already\u201d. But I don\u2019t want to rush it, either. Take this piece of writing I\u2019m doing right now. Instead of publishing it on Substack, I could publish it on \/1000\/, and it would count as 2 wordvomits. But I don\u2019t really feel like doing that, so I won\u2019t. Why? It\u2019s hard to say. It\u2019s just a feeling. Amongst other things, \/1000\/ has been an experiment in feeling my feelings. Well- really, all creative work is an experiment in feeling your feelings. And living itself is the supreme creative act, for which all other creative work is a kind of rehearsal, or scaffolding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VI. different contexts<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Different people may have different attitudes towards the idea of \u201cfinish what you started\u201d, because of the contexts they were in, because of who they inherited that idea from, and all the connotations and so on. Right now I\u2019m thinking of how, in God Of War (2018), Kratos says it to his son Atreus about killing the deer that Atreus had just hunted with his bow. In that context, I\u2019m inclined to support Kratos \u2013 you shouldn\u2019t leave that particular job unfinished. The animal is right there, wounded and dying. Finish the job. But outside of that context, when I think about the burdensome way I carried the phrase \u201cI gotta finish what I started\u2026\u201d when it comes to my creative work, it feels more like\u2026 insisting on eating food that has already started to spoil. Chances are that I\u2019ll just get sick, in the sense of feeling grossed out by my own work, my own process. I\u2019ve learned from sad experience that once you lose the love and joy in the creative process, it can take a long time to recover. It can be the emotional equivalent of getting injured in training. You\u2019re better off simply not getting injured in the first place. And that means knowing your limits. Which can be difficult to know before you\u2019ve tested them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I continue with this particular essay I realize with some amusement that \u201cfinish what you started\u201d can also apply not just to particular essays, but even to individual threads of thought within<\/em> an essay. (((At this point, having written about 2000 words, I now find myself pausing to scan back what\u2019s been written so far. I add \u2018partitions\u2019 between sections where I discern them. Next I turn those partitions into subheaders, and I notice that one of those sections is a little sparse compared to the others. I\u2019ll fill that in later. I also look to see if there are ideas that I brought up, that I did not follow through on, that I would now like to follow through on\u2026 yes\u2013 there\u2019s the bit about goals and typing speed and bottlenecks that I touched on briefly but didn\u2019t follow through on. Do I want to get into it here, or do I want to go back to it and update it there? I think it makes more sense to update. So this section is probably going to be sledgehammered out of existence, or maybe relegated to a footnote.)))<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should I finish every individual thought that comes up in an essay? It\u2019s tempting to say yes. That\u2019s an ideal outcome. But while I was scrolling up and revisiting some of the above sections, I found myself beginning to get weary. I started to slip into the trough of, \u201ceh, is any of this stuff even worth saying? haven\u2019t I said it before already? well, repetition is not intrinsically a bad thing\u2026 but maybe this shouldn\u2019t go on the substack?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VII. bringing it home<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In the context of this particular essay, in this particular moment, it\u2019s moderately important to me that I finish what I started. I would go to bed feeling more relaxed and comfortable and happy knowing that I wrote something today and published it on my substack, which is a context that I\u2019ve been meaning to develop more fluency in. I would be slightly annoyed that I wrote yet another essay about my creative process rather than one of the more difficult topics I actually want to be writing about, but I periodically find it preferable to publish something instead of nothing. I\u2019m practicing my chops, cultivating my voice, getting into the swing of things.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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