This has been inspired by two thorns.
A fantastic YouTube video by Storytellers
How To Be Creative: How an Artist Turns Pro
And my current flaring hemorrhoids
The video covers the subject of resistance. The resistance of doing anything but the creative work that you should be doing. Whether that is procrastination, fear, and/or anxiety that prevents you from starting or continuing.
What this hasn’t covered or mentioned is the resistance of being in physical pain.
Everyone has experienced at least a bad day when you haven’t had enough sleep. You’ve forgot to take your caffeine and you’ve got a headache that you know will rob you of the next few hours of work. Bruised and sore muscles.
We can get through our paying gigs just fine. Suffering through these aches and pains without a great loss to the man we are making dollars for. But then when we have the chance to work for ourselves … well … results may vary.
I’ve torn a muscle in my shoulder two hours into an eight hour shift during my first ninety days at a cardboard factory. It’s been two years and there is still of whisper of that muscle that hasn’t been reclaimed reminding me of that I’ve lifted and worked through a 7 on the Stanford Pain Scale. And I’ve experienced a certified 9 as reference.
Right now I’ve got a cough and a hemorrhoid that spikes my pain from 3 to 5. But here I am still getting work done. Tonight when I’m lifting in my warehouse job I might be between a 5 and 7 but that’s not going to stop me there.
So why does this pain stop me when I’m here?
Why then can’t I get work done, pages written, plots thickened, or characters killed, if I’m experiencing anything greater than a 4 on the pain scale?
Why isn’t this type of resistance discussed?
What really burns me through… is how I forget that I was ever in pain to begin with. I was sick last Friday and I couldn’t get more than a single page of a comic script transferred from storyboard to word. Then I spent all Saturday beating myself up about how I’ve wasted a twenty four hour period. Only to have a cough remind me that I was still sick and bring some form of validation for the choice I made.
I know at this point that even taking one day off is disaster to my time frames and deadlines. One day breeds two years and a decade later you’ll be just as unhappy with yourself as your unfinished or unstarted projects.
If your in pain but you do a quality 10%…
Try to be happy with that
rest and heal
Maybe tomorrow you’ll be able to do 15% or more.
But if you start doing 0% the resistance will only grow stronger and you’ll need to be at 110% before you start again.
Wishing you all good health,
Hngyhngyhppo
hngyhngyhppo 