Patch 1.3: The Curse and Joy of Dissatisfaction

Welcome to Patch Notes, where we cover practical ideas to master any skill, create your best work, and outlevel your stats in life.

I want to try something different today - a personal anecdote that I think might help anyone who’s struggling to move forward with unfinished work. Or even to simply publish what’s already finished, but not ‘ready’.

Here goes…

I figured it was time to dust the cobwebs off of my YouTube channel and give it some fresh blood, so yesterday I dug up some old pieces of unreleased music.

Finished them ages ago, just never got around to creating/sourcing cover art, writing the descriptions, or even deciding what purpose they would serve.

So they just sat there for a couple of years.

As I listened through, picking out which ones were worth publishing (and which ones should never see daylight), the strangest combination of feelings surfaced…

Sadness. Passion. Frustration. Regret. Excitement. Awe.

All in waves, all at once. It was overpowering.

I don’t know why I let these collect dust for so long. They were quite good. And at the same time, they needed work. A lot of it.

Ideas popped into my head for how to improve those songs that never would have when I “finished” them.

Yet as imperfect as they were, I couldn’t help but wonder - what would have happened if I had released them years ago?

Maybe nothing. Or maybe one could have taken off in the meantime, and I’d be living a very different life today.

But more likely, I would have gotten useful feedback I could have used to make more stuff.

Most of life is mundane. Most of the work I create probably won’t over-index. But I will probably never gain the ability to predict what will, no matter how much experience I incur.

At the same time, all of it affects who I become. Every release is a data point.

Each milestone, however small, updates who I am ever so slightly.

One thing I know for certain - I’ve never been happy I didn’t release something. The time it takes, the insecurity to overcome … it’s always worth it.

Even publishing the stuff I think sucks, but that quiet voice says, “This is as ‘done’ as it’s going to get.”

If I have the slightest urge to publish, it’s probably correct. Even when I don’t want to admit it.

That marriage of drive and dissatisfaction together is where my best work has always come from.

I’d have a clear idea in my head of what I wanted to create … create something that sounded hopelessly far away from the concept … then make it as good as I could.

Sometimes, I’d think “this is the best thing I’ve ever created!” … only to look back on it and think, ”I thought this was good?”

Maybe it will never feel good enough. The more time that goes by, though, the more I’ve grown to accept this.

Dissatisfaction looking back is a sublime form of feedback. It’s honest. Raw.

Dissatisfaction in the present is a call to learn more, practice better, create more fully.

But dissatisfaction looking forward is a curse.

I’d rather give my future self the benefit of the doubt, to at least try to meet my personal standards, and to watch as those standards grow.

Cultivate the right kind of dissatisfaction and cut the rest.

That’s a long road, and it brings the best and worst suffering with it.

Yet this I can accept.

-Harry