I like the mad rush frantic energy that comes from having to fulfill a relatively huge amount of work within a very short time frame just before a deadline. All cards are on the table, the best abilities that usually stay on the bench are out on the field, going on the offensive just to score that decisive goal before the final whistle blows and everything locks into permanence.
You're aware that you're doing something that's above and beyond your normal output, operating at a cognitive and physical intensity that can't be sustained indefinitely, and that in itself creates a charged situation where the stakes feel visceral and immediate, stripping away all the usual distractions and second-guessing.
If only my win rate is above 50% with finishing all tasks just before a deadline in a way that meets or exceeds what I set out to accomplish, i.e quality matches the intensity of effort.
Almost half of the time, the results are not up to my subjective standards and there's always this short debate within myself whether to concede failing the deadline or passing through with a subjective subpar standard.
I don't know. Objectively, what I perceive as not up to standard is usually filtered by the distorted lens of exhaustion and hypercritical self-assessment that comes from being too close to the work.
Hard to describe into words but when fully immersed in something, all feelings of objectivity are thrown out of the window, so to speak. And it does take time to adjust back into the real world and view things with the perspective that distance and rest provide.
Those are the moments I begin to regret failing the deadline for purely subjective reasons as it often proves to be a misjudgment on further thought.
However what does stays with me longest beyond the regret, which often passes hurriedly after engaging in other activities, is the state of mind during those hours.
Everything else falls away. There's a purity to it, an almost physical sensation of operating at full capacity. That feeling becomes addictive in its own way, which explains why I keep engineering these situations even when I know the risks. The work is the excuse, the state itself is what I'm actually chasing and I think also I've learnt to notice the unflinching reality that the work exists independently of all these shifting evaluations I engage in.
I mean, it just sits there, unchanged, while I cycle through different relationships to it. First the desperate creator trying to wrestle it into existence. Then the exhausted critic convinced it's failed. Then again the distant reader who barely recognizes it as something they made.
Anyways, I don't think I'm looking for a solution here. Just acknowledging the pattern. Naming the thing that keeps happening. That feels like enough for now.
Thanks for reading!! Share your thoughts below on the comments.
