How to avoid being legible (and why it's good)
Reflecting on what the question "what are you working on?" does to my mind when I'm in the middle of a creative pursuit
(trying a new “category” of posts where I recap some interesting discussion or insight I had on twitter. I often make breakthroughs there in conversation with others. And I realized, I can’t always easily find them again, since I tweet so much. And I figured, if it’s this hard for me, what about people who follow me!!
so, here’s my attempt to give you a fighting chance, I’m summarizing the “best of” my twitter conversations)
Outline
Explaining why “being legible” is a problem
it “collapses the possibility space” of my creative work
others’ descriptions of this experience, of not being legible: “energetic space”, “howling at the moon”
anxiety about it can cause you to “switching to a legible task”
A possible solution (being comfortable saying “I don’t know”)
I had an epiphany, about why I love solitude, that it’s about NOT having to answer the question “what are you doing?”
I think I love alone time because I hate being asked "why are you doing this", even in a positive way
I don't know man, why is the wind blowing today? Why is it sunny? I don't have an answer, it's just happening and it feels good
https://twitter.com/DefenderOfBasic/status/1788613338101916147
I realized in that thread, this is not about being annoyed at the question or interruption. The problem is: I cannot answer the question without it changing my mind/my behavior.
It’s like, I actually do NOT know what I’m doing, at least not verbally. I am drawn to a specific type of work, and I’m doing it. I’m creating something beautiful. You ask me what it is, now I have to put words to it, but the words aren’t quite right. It’s difficult to go back to the “unnamed exploration” (why? Concretely, because it will look like I stopped doing the task I told you I was doing, and that I’m doing something else. And that might prompt you to ask, “oh why did you stop doing that? what are you doing now” look, I don’t know! I will know later. But right now, I don’t know what the rational pattern is, but I’m following my instinct, and we can analyze it later).
If you prefer a physics metaphor: my creative pursuit is like a quantum state, there’s a huge possibility space, it’s slowly coalescing into something interesting. Asking too early collapses it into something known. Chokes out the novelty I seek.
This sounds very weird, and maybe this doesn’t happen to you. But I was glad to hear I was not alone, many said they felt this exactly!
It’s this experience where you allow yourself to just do what feels good, even if it’s inconsistent.
@meridians_ described it as “energetic space”. It’s this experience where you allow yourself to just do what feels good, even if it’s inconsistent. For me this can look like: switching between writing an article, to making a creative side project, to watching a YouTube video, to reading a book, possibly all within the same 10 minutes.
This is a really big deal for me because I used to struggle with being unproductive, distracted. But when I allow myself to work in this wacky, unconventional way, I surprisingly get a LOT more concrete stuff actually done and shipped, and I feel great at every step of the way.
@swampentity described feeling exactly this, and I loved hearing that so much:
I had two weeks living alone recently and usually distractibility is the death of me but it seems like when it's constrained just by *me* and not by others in my environment it isn't a problem?? I actually end up getting loads done, even if in ludicrous haphazard fashion???
I saw myself here. I feel exactly what they feel. It reminded me of when I “gave up”, accepted that I can’t focus on 1 article at a time, and allowed myself to write down notes for the new ideas I keep getting, even if it means getting 2-5 new ideas every single morning. I started publishing way more as a result.
It’s something that (1) makes no sense, to others (honestly even to you), and yet (2) it feels so goddamn good
@hyphaedelity said her partner describes his alone time as “howling at the moon” which I thought was an incredible way to describe this! It’s something that (1) makes no sense, to others (honestly even to you), and yet (2) it feels so goddamn good. and you feel great afterwards. And, for me, I usually end up with a beautiful piece of work afterwards, or an open source contribution. So I say: why not?
@swampentity added that, the anxiety of being asked, “what are you doing” and having to articulate that unknowable thing, is so great that will often switch to “a more legible task” if there’s others around, just to avoid this.
oh god yes very much all of this; I would go so far as to say I don't even like being asked "what are you up to"? like idk, nothing and several things at once, nothing I want to go to the trouble of making legible to the asker or even myself, usually??
This is why I have always felt a HUGE difference between doing creative work when there’s someone else at home, vs doing creative work completely alone.
But I don’t have access to doing creative work completely alone most of the time. So I’d like to figure out a way to fix this, if possible.
A possible solution
@DaystarEld said:
I think "because it feels good" is just actually the right answer to most of these types of questions, and the question loses a lot of its bite when we get to the point of feeling comfortable saying it without worry of judgement from others.
I think this might work for me. I think it accomplishes NOT naming it, which is important. But it also removes the anxiety, of feeling bad about not knowing it.
I think “being comfortable saying it” is a critical part for this to work. I have to believe this is NOT A WEIRD ANSWER. This is a perfectly logical, rational answer. I just explained the mental pattern above! It’s very concrete.
There’s nothing magical/woo-woo about it. I’m totally fine trying to give you an answer later, but in this moment, it doesn’t make sense to give you an answer. I appreciate you asking. If you think “I don’t know” is a weird answer, that’s because you don’t understand this mechanism (and I am happy to explain to you! maybe you experience it too!)
I chose this picture with the boy having a pencil drawing his mind for the article, because I feel like the act of answering the question "what are you working on?" is me reaching into my mind and writing the answer. The answer is NOT what was already there. it's a post-hoc rationalization
It's like if I did something dumb, and instead of admitting it, I (without being aware) made up a rational explanation, and then I started committing to the bit, as if that was what I was doing all along.
I wouldn't have described it in the exact same way, but this description of why solitude helps so much, fits pretty well with my experience. Having other people in my vicinity feels like there being sort of "cognitive land mines" which may subtly derail or adjust the direction of my metal processes. Not because I'm always extremely susceptible to social pressure or anything, but because I'm sufficiently conscientious/self-aware such that I can't help but constantly "feel the presence" of those around me and be affected by their expectations.
Not having those landmines go off when the compulsion comes to pace back and forth, or let out a loud "whoop!" or whatever, helps. Even if the presence of others doesn't actually change my actions, it kinda adds extra, unwelcome, cognitive processes.
Usually when I'm forced to operate within a social environment, I end up simply proceeding way differently. That's kinda why libraries/coffee shops can be useful - I personally find them inferior over the blessed anarchism of complete solitude, but you can use the especially rigid social rules of certain public environments to block yourself from certain ways of operating. Can't scratch your butt, jump around, start playing random YouTube stuff or whatever.