The Curse and Joy of the Creative Process
On creativity, doubt, and Miyazaki’s search for inspiration.
This week I'm working on a new project with set of clear instructions and constraints. Yet I struggled—not because I didn’t know how to do it, but because of my tendency to create my own thing, to leave my blueprint on everything I make.
I mean, why am I like this? Why do I bring my own suffering upon myself? Come on, it’s all clear—just do the damn work.
But this, my friends, is the curse of being a creative. You fall in love with the creative process once and you can't escape it forever. You want to experience it with all the work you do, even when it comes with doubt, mess, and struggle.
On Miyazaki's journey for finding inspiration
Whenever I feel stuck, I think of the timeless NHK documentary on Hayao Miyazaki’s creative process. It’s raw, unfiltered, and deeply relatable.
Watching Miyazaki—a master of his craft— admit that he feels inadequate and embarrassed by his own ideas, reminds me that even the greatest are not immune to self-doubt.
Miyazaki likes to believe that inspiration is like dropping a fishing line into your mind– you aren't able to choose what is caught, but your job is to let it flow through you and onto the paper.
He doesn’t look for inspiration in other animations or artwork but in the mundane–museum visits, music, everyday scenes. He believes that inspiration lies in the ordinary —and I like to believe in this too— and that inspiration will come as long as he is actively searching for it.
There’s no right way—there’s only your way
The abundance of creative work on the internet can make the act of creation seem easy, making us suffer in our imagination thinking we're slow, our ideas too trivial, or even stupid. (And let’s be honest, sometimes they might be.)
The truth is that the creative process is messy and non-linear, different for each project we undertake. When we embrace this reality, we can trust our work and the process, knowing that our creation is evolving and will eventually mature.
There's no formula, fixed strategy, or playbook—and that's where the beauty of the creative process lies. You must trust your own intuition and find joy in your journey.
As I write this, I realize I've fallen into the very trap I was trying to describe. I struggled to find a piece worth writing, and then it all made sense. You can't escape the doubt, the struggle. And maybe that's the point.
“Wanting to do” something doesn’t mean you’re “able to”. You must push yourself until your nose starts bleeding. Hayao Miyazaki