## Hard to Start Five years ago, every time I sat down to create, I faced the same enemy: a blank canvas and the crushing weight of not knowing how to start. Inspiration had struck, but starting felt impossible. The first few moments of something new always feel monumental. In *The War of Art*, Steven Pressfield calls that moment **Resistance**; the mental and emotional force that keeps you from beginning. It's one of my favorite books about the creative process because it puts a name to that inner friction and reminds you to push through it. Grit your teeth. Do the work. But when I revisited my notes on it recently, I realized something, **those demons don't show up anymore**. Today, I spend most of my time writing with some AI counterpart. I can throw a half-baked, messy idea into an LLM and get something useable in seconds. Starting isn't about wracking my brain looking for the right words, but having a conversation. While I still face some friction to start, it's far easier to react to rough material than it is to create from nothing. AI breaks the ice for me. It gives me something to shape, critique, and push against. I supply the ideas and the architecture, it gives me an outline I can work against. Then, together, we write the final draft. This creates a natural feedback loop. A creative symbiosis. I feed the machine and it feeds me back allowing for faster iteration and progress. The result? Writer's block didn't just disappear. It's dead. I'm having trouble remembering what it even felt like. In the past, I could be stuck for days or weeks at a time. Long enough that I'd forget why or what I was writing. Now, any slowdown in productivity is up to my discipline, not creativity. I've seen this change happen across a dozen different fields. Designers are getting prototypes up in second, coders have an MVP in a day, a first draft for a business plan is done in an afternoon. The world is accelerating and nowhere is that more obvious than in how quickly we can go from idea to execution. ### The Zero-to-One Leap is Now Trivial The clearest example of this zero-to-one leap is 'vibe coding' — quickly building a rough prototype in code just to see if an idea has legs. What used to take days, weeks, or even months now takes a single afternoon. **You can:** - Draft a business idea. - Outline a course. - Create a video. - Mock up or prototype an app. - Generate a marketing campaign. - Build a concept brand. - Start work on a new album. The stakes for this kind of experimentation have never been lower. The fear of wasting time is gone. There's no need to question whether you're headed in the right direction. You can try ten things before lunch, toss out the bad ones, and double down on the best. Different voices, styles, and outlandish ideas are all on the table. You don't need to ration creative energy, just throw things at the wall and see what sticks. For me, this means writing isn't confined to a single format. I can create visuals to go along with my work without a graphic designer. If I want to take my writing and turn it into an infographic for Instagram, just give me a few moments I'll ask ChatGPT. Change a blog into a script for Tiktok? No problem, I'll condense my work into the most important 15-second chunks. This isn’t limited to writers. Anyone who creates — designers, developers, musicians, entrepreneurs — has a way to get moving without the heavy lift. The blank page is no longer a blockade; it’s a starting point. But faster doesn't mean easier. The challenges haven’t disappeared, they’ve evolved ## The New Resistance The old resistance was getting started. It's still around, but greatly diminished by the tools we have at our fingertips. The new version is subtle. Beliefs few of us have ever had to struggle with in the past. ### Overthinking and Perfectionism When it's so easy to start and iterate, it's tempting to keep polishing endlessly. You fall into the trap of believing that, because you _can_ keep improving, you _should_ — and that nothing is worth sharing until it’s perfect. It’s a worthy instinct but a dangerous one. Your time is better spent shipping. You can always refine something after it’s live, but nothing grows while it’s sitting in your drafts folder. ### False Narratives A new kind of creative guilt has emerged; the belief that if AI helped you, the work doesn't count. Most of us were raised to believe that hard work and struggle are what make something meaningful. That if you didn’t sweat over every word, every pixel, or every line of code, the final product isn’t really yours. I’ve seen that narrative weaponized against anyone using AI in their process. If a model helped you draft an app, write a paper, or shape an idea, the assumption is that you didn’t really create it — the machine did. It’s a deeply personal struggle, but one we’ll all have to come to terms with. Personally, I reject that idea. You’re still the one setting the direction, crafting the prompts, and shaping the output. Just because the struggle looks different doesn’t mean the work isn’t real. ### MVP Delusion The danger isn't in starting fast, it's mistaking the draft for the final product. Vibe coding quickly transitioned to something else entirely. Nearcyan on X refers to it as 'slop coding'— the habit of publishing rough, half-baked projects and treating them as finished work ![[Pasted image 20250330214731.png]] Creators stopped treating their pet projects as prototypes and started treating them as the final product. They were so novice to what they created they didn't even understand the perils of publishing. Their lack of knowledge eventually undid their work. Speed is a gift best paired with discipline. ### Distraction The ease of starting creates another trap: endless new beginnings. The moment a new idea pops into your head, you can bring it to life in minutes. In the past, the effort required to get started acted as a filter. You were less likely to jump ship because you’d already invested time and energy in what you were working on. Now, there’s no friction. It’s easier than ever to abandon one project for another at the first sign of difficulty. These new forms of Resistance aren’t loud. They don’t feel like roadblocks, but they’re just as effective at keeping you from creating great work. ## Your New Creative Responsibility Starting is easy now. Finishing is still hard. The good news is that was always a problem for creatives, you're just far more likely to bump into it now. The new War on Art isn’t about overcoming the fear of beginning; it’s about maintaining focus, resisting the temptation to endlessly refine, and following your ideas through to completion. The obstacles aren’t upfront anymore but waiting for you as you work. Your responsibility now is to learn how to use these tools without letting them use you. To lean on AI to break creative blocks and move quickly, but without sacrificing intention or falling into distraction. Speed without direction is just noise. The real skill isn’t starting faster. It’s finishing more often. It’s about developing the discipline to publish, to release, to put your work out there repeatedly until it becomes second nature. That has always separated creators who thrive from those who stall. If you can do that—if you can pair these powerful tools with the will to finish—you’ll outperform almost everyone. Not because you have access to better technology, but because you’ve built the discipline to use it well. The real battle isn’t against the blank page anymore. It’s against your ability to follow through. The artists, builders, and creators who win today don't just have great ideas, they’re the ones who finish.