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This happens to me every now and then, when all motivation and inspirations run out and I'm left with just myself and the naked piece of work that is no longer cloaked by personal fantasies. Everything in life is ugly without meanings, purposes or interests from the viewers.
The problem with doing creative work (or sharpening your skills at anything really) is that once you've achieved something, like getting THIS much better, and learned of the feeling of accomplishment when you improve, it's hard to remember the fun of the struggle you had in the very process of trying to get something done, or improving yourself. When we've learned of how good it feels when we achieve something, we tend to forget that having fun while doing something was the sole reason why we started to do what we do, and why we've gotten this far.
This is something my friend said to me, which I completely agreed to (thanks again brodem!): while chasing after a butterfly, we bear the risk of crushing it. It doesn't mean we should give up. It just means that we human have the ability to ruin something, in the very process of achieving it. What usually needed to realize and resolve this is just to take a step back from whatever it is you're doing, and reassess things. Gain yourself a bigger perspective. Question the reason why you're here, and if your approach to it is working right.
In a more technical context, it usually should just take a break from doing anything relevant to what you don't feel satisfied with. But personally, sometimes even I feel that taking a break would just return less values than to keep working would, but that doesn't mean my intuition is right. In fact I know in that case my intuition is always wrong, because I was taught to keep working constantly towards something, instead of taking a break sometimes to regain my vision. So what I usually do is just ... work on something else instead. That way I can still be away from the work I'm not happy about, and still won't feel bad for taking a break away from it.
So the bottom line is just, try to learn to gain a different perspective when looking at something ugly, especially if it's something you've made, and you may just discover something interesting. Something new about it, or something you've lost unintentionally.
The problem with doing creative work (or sharpening your skills at anything really) is that once you've achieved something, like getting THIS much better, and learned of the feeling of accomplishment when you improve, it's hard to remember the fun of the struggle you had in the very process of trying to get something done, or improving yourself. When we've learned of how good it feels when we achieve something, we tend to forget that having fun while doing something was the sole reason why we started to do what we do, and why we've gotten this far.
This is something my friend said to me, which I completely agreed to (thanks again brodem!): while chasing after a butterfly, we bear the risk of crushing it. It doesn't mean we should give up. It just means that we human have the ability to ruin something, in the very process of achieving it. What usually needed to realize and resolve this is just to take a step back from whatever it is you're doing, and reassess things. Gain yourself a bigger perspective. Question the reason why you're here, and if your approach to it is working right.
In a more technical context, it usually should just take a break from doing anything relevant to what you don't feel satisfied with. But personally, sometimes even I feel that taking a break would just return less values than to keep working would, but that doesn't mean my intuition is right. In fact I know in that case my intuition is always wrong, because I was taught to keep working constantly towards something, instead of taking a break sometimes to regain my vision. So what I usually do is just ... work on something else instead. That way I can still be away from the work I'm not happy about, and still won't feel bad for taking a break away from it.
So the bottom line is just, try to learn to gain a different perspective when looking at something ugly, especially if it's something you've made, and you may just discover something interesting. Something new about it, or something you've lost unintentionally.
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