i wouldn't call it time well spent

I think I've finally realized why I was having such a massive block on my creativity/coming up with ideas/writer's block in general.

I thought of creativity as a zero-sum game: if I 'waste' my creativity on a bad idea, then I won't have any when I actually want to come up with a bad idea——it's not like looking at a given situation as inspiration could help me learn to look at other situations for inspiration, or anything like that.

Similarly, I seemed to believe that if I 'waste' my writing energies on something I end up not liking, then I have gained nothing of value from it, and there is no way to reuse any of it.

... thinking of it this way now seems so very obviously ridiculous, but christ, what insidious thoughts!