In matters of creativity, you must. It’s impossible to hold on to everything. You’ll lose ideas. Great ones. Bad ones. You won’t have the energy to pull on every thread. To sit until you can sync it all into one coherent picture.
This can be frustrating. We want to write down every thought, bring every spark to perfection immediately. Alas, not every fish needs to be caught. How many treasures can an explorer lift from the sea?
An average explorer spends most her time at the tavern, drinking, planning, conjuring her next great voyage, if only in stories for her fellow dreamers at the bar. Her grandest feats remain the ones she never got around to doing.
A true explorer sails every day, not for the expectation of finding treasure any minute, but for the faith that if she keeps exploring, treasure will sometime appear – if only by some divine deviation she could not have found at the bottom of even the deepest wine jug.
Your creativity is infinite. Your ability to tell good from bad is not. Your judgment is more akin to a hand-drawn map squiggled by a drunk. Trust in your creativity more so than in your judgment.
As long as you exercise it every day, your brain will deliver when you need it. Letting go is hard, but once she’s out on the water, it’s the only way for the adventurer to get the right wind behind her sails.