Memorandum on Creative Break Research
An observational record of the practice of consuming craft content as a substitute for producing it.
I.
The person making something takes a break. The break is from the making, not from the subject of the making. This distinction is important. During the break, the person watches a video about how to make the thing they are not currently making. They read three articles. They find a forum thread from 2019 in which a different person asks a similar question and receives answers that are partially applicable.
The first accommodation for creative break research looks harmless and removes a little uncertainty. The uncertainty removed is the uncertainty about whether the approach is correct. The approach is never tested during the break.
II.
The accommodation becomes teachable. Other people who make similar things describe the same behavior using the language of research. Research sounds deliberate. It sounds like preparation. It precedes the work, which means it feels like the beginning of the work, which means stopping it feels like stopping before you have started.
This is the design. The step looks like part of making something, yet it delays the part where uncertainty cannot be controlled.
Under the governing rule, creative break research is considered stable once removing it would require an explicit conversation. The explicit conversation would be with oneself. That conversation is difficult to schedule.
III.
Later, ignoring creative break research appears reckless even though the rule was invented from habit. The recklessness is the feeling of beginning without looking first. This feeling has no factual basis. The person who watches the videos is not better prepared than the person who starts. They are better delayed.
The person watching the videos knows this. Knowing it does not stop it.
The break ends when the material runs out or the guilt exceeds the comfort. The work resumes. The uncertainty, which was present before the break, is present after it. Nothing about the uncertainty was reduced by the research. Some comfort was added.
That is not nothing. It is also not nothing that the thing is not done.
The search for the next video begins approximately forty minutes into the resumed work session.