It’s getting harder to write these morning blog posts.
The challenge of making something from seemingly nothing is tricky but familiar. The ritual of staring at a blank page, fishing for sparks, trying to shape them into words.
But lately, there’s another emotion at play.
Doubt.
Wrapped in questions that come back every time I sit down:
How will you top the last one? How do you one-up yourself? Do you even have what it takes to keep going? Should you keep trying? What if you can’t? What if you can’t for a long time?
How are you going to top Cringe? Mess? Reps? Fog? Inverse? Canvas? Leap?
Have I reached my peak? Is this as high as the mountain goes? Was Leap… the last one?
What stories do I have left to tell, besides rehashing the same ones in slightly different packaging? What’s the next Disney live-action remake you’re going to do?
The truth: I don’t know. But I’m going to try anyway.
Digging
I know this exercise—the digging, the connecting, the discomfort of staring down doubt and still writing—this is the work. This is what helps me get sharper (keeps me sharp).
And it’s not just creativity. It’s what happens after the motivation dries up. When the tank’s on empty. When the clever ideas are gone.
So you scrape. You scribble. You throw nonsense at the wall just to see what sticks. And the funny part—not “ha-ha funny,” but “ain’t-that-something” funny—is that’s where you grow. Not in the easy days, but in the brutal ones. In the tired, uninspired, nothing-left days. When you show up anyway.
Putting in the reps. Sitting with the tension. Making myself practice the thing I’d rather avoid.
Besides… this is the exact same feeling I had right before some of my favorite posts were born. Back then, it just whispered instead of screaming. But if I hadn’t pushed myself through that doubt, I never would have written them.
Building
So maybe, somewhere in me, there’s another Autonomy. Another Anchor. Another Spark waiting to surface.
The only way to find out is to keep digging. To keep trying. To keep showing up. To keep building.
Not every attempt is a masterpiece. Most aren’t. Every attempt is competition with your past self—and that competition is unwinnable.
“Tennis is depressing because no matter how good I get, I’ll never be as good as a wall.”
As Mitch Hedberg once said.
That’s the truth of building. It’s process. It’s practice. It’s not about topping yourself—it’s about layering. Brick by brick, post by post, until something solid takes shape.
Climbing
The point isn’t to top what’s subjectively best. The point is to keep getting objectively better.
There is no peak. There are only plateaus. And the only way off a plateau is through the grind—the endless, exhausting reps.
The trap is thinking your best work is behind you. The truth is your best work only exists because you walked through the valley of doubt before.
Day after day.
Not topping. Building.