Seethe

Having devoted numerous total lifetime hours of self-analysis to the subject, I've concluded there's a number of factors that combine to prevent me from managing to complete any kind of serious creative endeavour, the most prominent being the unwillingness/inability (and it really is a weird combination of both/all of one/all of the other at various times) to actually do the work. There are other, more legitimate-sounding reasons, too (I add "-sounding" because I think "unwillingness to do the work" is actually a pretty reasonable excuse, but it's one that sounds lame when you give it to people), and they add up to what seems to be a pretty insurmountable barrier most of the time.

Of course, plenty of successful creative people have faced similar barriers though, and have gone right ahead and surmounted them with the strategic deployment of  such qualities and motivations as determination, persistence, discipline, a desire for self-betterment, a veritable need to create and so on. All noble, Protestant stuff, all frequently credited in success stories, and all of which I am almost entirely bereft. (Almost. Here we are still going, 13-year-old blog. Something's motivating you.)

Instead, I think if there's a single motivating factor that ever succeeds in spurring me off my arse and into meaningful action, it will be this: jealousy. Jealousy of  successful creative people – those successful dicks, with their stupid success. Jealousy and its sandfly-bite-on-your-ankle feeling – I guess that's logically an enjoyable meal you're receiving there sandfly, my fellow creature, but damn, somehow that knowledge is failing to stop this slight irritation I'm feeling.

I'm friends with way too many sandflies. In actuality, I don't  really begrudge them their collected and considerable success, and do wish them well in their endeavours, since I'm not a complete tosser. But I also think back to being on the Milford Track, where the sandflies are so thick that whenever you stop walking they swarm you in their hundreds. And everyone ends up just taking the bites in the end – you sort of just have to get on with your life, because there's just teeming clouds of the things waiting to eat you.

But then you also need to have the occasional psychotic break where you go ah godDAMNIT these GODDAMN SANDFLIES, and you leap to your feet and make a genuine effort to smash the entire sandfly species from existence using only your volcanic-level anger.

Lately I'm sort of hoping that as the talented people I know continue and expand upon their success as time goes on, I'll flip out in a similar manner one-day and rage-write a novel, or something.

The dedication would probably say:

I knew I was as good as you.