In the cycle of creation, there are few things more difficult than that period of progress where there is nothing much to be seen, nothing much to talk about, really, nothing to do at all except do.

In the beginning stages of an idea, you can use the input. If nothing else, talking it out lets you refine it in your own mind.

And when you’re having problems, there are few things more cathartic than telling a friend the problem you’re having and getting help solving it.

And towards the end, when you’re done with the doing, and you’re polishing and preparing for launch, the only thing getting you through those tedious days is rhapsodizing, at length, on how wonderful this thing will be when it’s finally done. How everything will change. How you’ll take a long vacation (because you’ve earned it) and what you’ll start on next.

But in between, there’s just doing. 

There’s a certain romance to the doing. There are certain frustrations as well, ones that can’t be shared by anyone who’s not intimately involved with the project as you.

And that’s the wonderful part.

A New Relationship

When you’re in the beginning phases of a project, there’s that whole will I/won’t I decision, which, rightly, you will talk out.

But once you commit, suddenly things are a whole lot different.

The subtleties of the project become apparent you in ways that you couldn’t explain to anyone else. You spend as much time as possible together, and it’s just as well, because you have nothing else to talk about anyway.

And anyway, you’re in the zone. You’re flying high. You’re engaged, solving problems, designing, testing.

Oh, but the testing.

Testing happens on its own schedule.

Which means that as committed and engaged as you are, you can’t do a damn thing but wait and see.

Having time on your hands, you might actually allow yourself to be dragged out on a coffee date. But there’s nothing to say. You have no results to talk about. Few people are interested in hearing about iterative modelling experiments without hearing how things turned out.

Ask them about their lives, why don’t you? So you do, but you feel crestfallen that you can’t share this wonderful project to the impressed whistles that it deserves. And at the end of it you scurry back to your lair to see if you’ve gotten results.

Doing is an individual’s pursuit.

Like many individual pursuits, it has its charms to a given individual. That’s not to say you can’t find people who share your joy in said pursuits (now that I have the whole internet to play in, I’ve found three or four) but let’s face it; if they were more popular, they’d be group pursuits, now, wouldn’t they?

So don’t expect people to be enthralled. No one cares about a half-completed painting, article, business plan, goal, or project of any kind. Luckily, you care.

And because this bit of magic is just between you and your project, there’s only one little metric that matters.

Progress.

(Let’s get back to work, shall we?)

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