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Cunobaros

Cunobaros

Too clever for my own good

I am intelligent and creative. Unfortunately. Well, not that I bemoan the fact. I'm not even ashamed of saying it. Arrogance or honesty? I can't answer that question - it depends more on your values than my own. And I can't really say I care much what people think of me. People in general, that is. There are some people whose opinion of me I am very sensitive about. Most of them know who they are.

But I digress. Like I said, I'm intelligent and creative. I create. I can do nothing else. I have always done it, and I think, hope and fear I always will. But. Creating is for me not the act of putting words to paper, writing software, place notes on a notesheet, draw the design for a dress, a piece of furniture, a program. At the point when I'm ready to do that the creative process has ended - the rest is note-taking, a boring chore.

And that's my curse. I create, and there's happiness and contentment in that. But to transfer my creation to a permanent medium? Pff. I create in my head and lack the stubborness, stamina, sense of duty or what have you to make it real.

There are occasions when it's not too bad. A poem or a song lyric isn't much work to write down. A short story, a design study - that's a bit more. There are times when I create as I realise it, while I write, doodle a design or write code. That works. For a while, until my thoughts run away from my hands. And I can never catch up, since my thoughts, my creative process is so much faster, and I always reach a point when it's so far ahead that I lose interest in what my hands do. It is, after all, so much more satisfying to create than it is to do the mechanical jotting down of what I've already created.

I have in my head, at the time of writing, three novels, seven or eight short stories, a dozen-odd melodies for songs I've written, the design of five different software applications... [Since the time of writing that, I've actually got one novel and a short story out. And I've added a new novel and a couple of articles and short stories.] And even if it isn't always complete, it's enough to make me sure that the creative process is largely ended. What remains is making the vision real, and I'm too lazy to do that. Or perhaps: I'm not sufficiently proud to do that, unless I'm too proud to do that. It's hard to say.

Like most people, I'd like to be admired. I want people to see what I've created and appreciate it. But with few exceptions (like The Tale) I don't create for anyone else, only myself. The few larger works I've finished have either come in one long, sustained burst, or through a sense of duty, or because I know, or believe, that people I know would appreciate them. But it's hard. I don't find it interesting.

So maybe I'm too proud, not caring about what others might think, not caring that others might find enjoyment in what I create - I'm selfishly keeping it to myself.

So maybe I'm too insecure, to afraid to show what I've created, doubting that others might enjoy it in any way.

Or maybe I'm just too lazy?

Quite possible. But my head is getting filled up. I need to clean out, make room for new things. And for every day I wait it gets harder to begin. Because I can't stop creating. I can't stop thinking, unless I get lost in a good book. Only then I'm free. But when I surface again, the thoughts and ideas come back, crowding me, stroking themselves against me like hungry cats, making me stumble.

I can't escape them. I don't want to escape them. I just wish I was strong enough to either finish or discard them.

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