Matt: The Curse of the Muse

Some days, like this mor­ning when I almost missed my flight to Word­Camp Cana­da in Otta­wa, I’m so over­whel­med with the maelstrom of ide­as and sparks of crea­ti­on that it feels like waves cras­hing against a dam. The­re are so many ways I can ima­gi­ne new soft­ware, new pro­ducts, new ways for the world to be.

This is a beau­tiful pro­cess, but it’s also pain­ful! The angu­ish and ago­ny ari­se as you attempt to distill the ide­as and sparks; the crea­ti­vi­ty dims, and the beau­ty and per­fec­tion of the ori­gi­nal inspi­ra­ti­on fade, as I try to trans­la­te it into some­thing that can beco­me real and be legi­ble to others. That’s why I have to drop ever­y­thing when inspi­ra­ti­on strikes, becau­se if I try to return to it later, I find the muse has left and I can’t bot­t­le that ener­gy any­mo­re. (There’s a reason Eric, Tan­tek, and I put “muse” into the XFN stan­dard!)

To the ext­ent I’ve been suc­cessful at all in my life, it is becau­se I’m able to con­tain this tor­na­do and break it down into plans, busi­ness models, peo­p­le, and teams. I’ve never done any­thing useful on my own; it’s always been in con­ver­sa­ti­on and part­ner­ship with others. 

I’m gra­teful to ever­yo­ne I work with across Auto­mat­tic, Word­Press, Audrey, Tin­ker­Ten­do, Keys, The Insti­tu­te, Illu­mi­na­te, Eco­Ame­ri­ca, Field Effect (in Otta­wa!), as well as all my fri­ends and pro­fes­sio­nal con­nec­tions. They are the ones that help me shape this ener­gy into things that actual­ly have an impact in the world and aren’t just fever dreams.

This essay its­elf had hundreds more words, but I have to edit, dele­te dele­te dele­te, trim things down.