I love the feeling of making something that didn’t feel like something I would make. It feels like something someone else—whose work I admire—made. The tickle is knowing it actually came from me.
I don’t mean just copying what someone else did. That’s just a copy. I can always tell it’s never quite like the original. Now that I think about it, that gives me the exact opposite feeling. That’s the worst feeling.
I’m talking about experiencing a thing I made that feels like one of my idols just came up with it.
That feeling, if it comes at all, usually comes early. It doesn’t last a long time. Newness always fades. Besides, as I keep molding it, it inevitably becomes more and more me. That’s not bad necessarily, but it is me.
And work that feels like me is, unfortunately, the most boring thing to me.
Occasionally, though, that feeling comes late—as I’m about to wrap the thing up. Some small tweak that makes the thing soar. That makes it the brand new thing that feels like someone else just came up with it.
That’s the best feeling.