Fear And Loathing

[poliphilo]

 Over at the site where I muck about with AI a popular image maker has announced that he/she (such a sign of the times that one doesn't know which) is giving up doing what we do because of the fear and loathing s/he feels every time s/he logs onto the site.

I suspect everybody who does any kind of creative work- no matter how humble and obscure- feels something of this when faced with the absence out of which one has to conjure some sort of presence. Put into words (inadequate of course) one is thinking "Suppose I can't do it today, suppose I can't do it ever again- and if I do manage to produce something suppose it is hopelessly sub-standard- and I disappoint myself and everybodyelse who makes up my "public?" 

If the symptoms get too alarming the sanest thing is to walk away- as the AI artist has done. Or is it? Can a person who has once tasted the sweetness of creative work ever live happily without it?

Comments

[cmcmck]

I've been unhappy with my poetry recently which is why I haven't shared anything new.

These things come and go.

[poliphilo]

They do.

There was a time in my life when I wrote a great deal of verse- but that was a good while ago- and now the muse will pop up once in a blue moon and say. "Please will you take dictation..." and I do.

[paserbyp]

The fear? I can understand it, because of mental sickness and as result is loathing…

[poliphilo]

"Fear and loathing" is a phrase popularised by the American gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson.....