The cave you fear to enter

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” - Joseph Campbell

This morning, my cave had watercolors, a five-year-old art director, and what would eventually become a painting of a gardenscape.

We’re so obsessed with optimization…Stop me here and tell me it’s just me!

Here’s the thing — as AI gets better at helping us hit KPIs and crushing deliverables, maybe our superpower isn’t optimization. It isn’t in the execution, it’s in the ideation.

Maybe it’s our ability to spend 45 minutes mixing a shade of purple only to accidentally knock over the water jar.

I’ve built my career on “innovation” and chasing 0-to-1 breakthroughs.

They came from playing around, followed by staring at the ceiling wondering why I thought edible shoelaces would revolutionize footwear.

Today, I finally stopped pretending I was “just supervising” and actually painted. I tried and have a result.

Immediately, my inner critic showed up like an uninvited house guest.

That same critic damns me for trying to share it.

Every sweeping brushstroke whispered “amateur hour.” The gap between my taste and my talent was wider than my pandemic sourdough phase.

But I kept going. Doing. Doing. And more doing.

Not because it would be fridge-worthy (it isn’t). Not because MoMA would call (they haven’t, but I’m avail).

But because I remembered: The magic happens between doing and reviewing, not in the judgment parade that usually follows.

We’ve ruined “creator” by stapling it to outcomes and engagement metrics. In a world where machines optimize everything, our ability to make happy trees might be peak humanity.

I left that session proud.

Not of my accidental Rorschach test, but because I didn’t quit when I realized it wasn’t great.

My muse outlasted my critic, even if just barely. That’s winning.

I can’t imagine a world where I don’t create things — good, bad, or mysteriously joyful.

What aren’t you doing because you’re not great yet and aren’t letting yourself learn?