My words are horrific abominations

Yet they still deserve my love

It’s late in the afternoon. My brain is tired after working 9 to 5. It needs an escape, an opportunity to spew its contents somewhere. It craves a way out. I feel a nudge to sit on my chair, with my coffee in hand, and start typing whatever my mind dictates. Sometimes slowly and methodically, focusing on a factual, well-thought piece. Other times in an unstructured way, with no limitations and constraints. Writing for the sake of it. Letting everything out.

Quite often, I end up struggling to get things out, things that are stuck somewhere in my head, leaking from a tiny cranny. “Hmm, what should go next?”. This investigation can take minutes or even hours, and puts my patience, imagination and expressiveness to the test.

Other times I am able to admire my fluency, that seamless flow that I wish could come as naturally as I would like it to. The epitome of effortless expression. It makes me feel jealous of myself, because I do not have full control over it yet. I have yet to grasp its true potential, to really understand its nature. It’s a phenomenon of the occult.

Regardless, it is a truly cathartic experience, while it lasts.

And then comes the creation. A product of either process, a fast and easy birth, or one full of labor pain, with its accompanying scars and discomfort. But a creation nonetheless. Hitting “Publish” signifies the birth of that creature, which slowly moves from a world of ideas and confusion, to the real world.

Relief. The birth was successful. And the child seems to be as beautiful as I imagined it would be.

But a child needs attention long after it is born. It demands a parent that cares for it, observes it, supervises it, and examines its growth and development. I still feel the need to be there for it. I can hear it calling me, that child of wonder and uniqueness. My biggest pride.

When I check up on its progress, however, all I see is a truth uglier than I could ever imagine. My intellectual child is not the beautiful creature I expected it to be. It didn’t inherit the traits I so generously wished to gift it with. My perspective has now shifted, and all I see is how wrong I was to believe I gave birth to a delicate brainchild.

I see a monstrosity. A creature of nightmares and illusions, smoke and mirrors. I don’t like it anymore. I find it ugly, disturbing, deformed.

“How did this happen? You were supposed to become beautiful. Yet here you are, something far from what I intended to give birth to. Something lesser”

I now feel ashamed of that birth. Because I no longer recognize myself in my intellectual child. When I was delivering, I had different hopes and ambitions for the result. I was anticipating something that could reflect my soul and thoughts, my inner workings. This one is far from my current vision.

Should I give it away? If I ignore it, if I erase it from memory, I might find solace.

And in that moment of agony and despair, where all hope and all pride seem lost, I remember the most important thing: It still is my intellectual child. With its flaws and malformations, limping limbs and lack of direction, it’s still mine.

And it still has potential in this world.

Because it is opening my eyes, it’s showing me the way to appreciate it for what it really is: a product of my mind. A snapshot of my condition and thought process during a strenuous or swift labor.

It is me.

So I decide to love those abominations. To let them show me where I was, where I’m headed and how far I have come. To treat them with respect, because that’s all they truly deserve. And to let them help me grow alongside them and move towards my ideal intellectual creation.

As creators, revisiting our work might be a painful process. We may no longer recognize ourselves in our writings, songs, sculptures and pieces of expression, in general. We might loathe them and reject them as unfortunate happenings during our journey.

Our work, however, is there to help us see thing clearly. It can teach us who we are, and how we can best externalize what is hidden within.

Our work is sacred, and we shouldn’t be ashamed of it.