Oh Dave, how I wish I spoke your language…

and

I wish I had the time in the day to think up cool shit like this

I often wish for the same thing.

There is some component of envy that is inherent to the creative world. Sometimes it gets mislabeled as “inspiration.” Speaking for myself, I get envious of a lot of other artists. The more I consider it, the more I feel that envy – short and simple – is the appropriate term for it.

I want to be Jessica Hirshe. I want to have an incredible fluency with illustrative typography. I want to draw words and manipulate letterforms.

I want to be Paul Irish. I want to have my hand in the front-end development project that matters. I want to be the go-to resource.

I want to use textures like Samantha Warren. I want to use visual composition like Rob Soulé. I want to have my head wrapped around particle systems like Rob Hawkes. I want to make enigmatic animated GIFs like davidope. I want to draw sexy comic babes like Phil Noto.

I could try and focus on any one of these abilities, practicing the niche craft, and get my chops up to speed. But in the end, I would be an impostor. A perfect copy is still a copy.

Eventually, after considering all the talents I’ll never achieve, I start to consider what I do have on my side. Therein lies my revelation. Just as I can never be my heroes, they can never be me. What I have is special. I only need to be productive and make stuff. Otherwise, I’m just envious. But if I am productive (in the formal sense of producing work), then I can be my own unique creator, a maker-of-things. I can elevate myself to the pantheon of Makers-of-Things and perhaps induce envy in other lesser mortals.

This applies to every creative individual. All the artistic emotional junk you keep with you doesn’t matter if you are making stuff. No, you might never speak my language, but you can develop one all your own.