tl;dr: what we call creative drought is often something older, more cyclical, and more necessary than we think.
dear reader,
for a good chunk of 2026, i haven't been making much. the ideas i reach for feel unreachable. the little work that does come out doesn't land right. a younger version of me would've spiraled — questioned his taste, his skills, whether the work is worth making.
the questions still come. i just don't believe their stories anymore.
what people call a block is almost always a season. seasons aren't a sign that something is wrong, but proof the system is working as designed.
the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the water cycle — none of them move in straight lines. matter transforms. it disappears from one form and re-emerges in another. nothing is wasted. nothing is lost. it just changes state.
the creative process is no different. psychologists have mapped it in four stages — preparation, incubation, illumination, verification — but look closely and you'll see a seasonal rhythm. and the stage most people fear, the quiet one, is the one doing the deepest work.
winter
the fallow period when things go underground. the default mode network fires quietly in the subconscious, making connections the conscious mind can't force.
spring
gathering, absorbing, wandering, hunting. the time to accumulate raw material without obvious purpose.
summer
execution. the time to make the work visible — and to recognize it carries the weight of everything that came before it.
autumn
harvest and release. the period of finishing and letting go. the decay of what's done becomes the soil for what's next.
the mistake isn't entering winter. the mistake is not recognizing it for what it is — and either forcing summer before it's time, or thinking that summer will never come again.
i've been here before and, before i know it, i'll be here again.
talk soon,
<3 santi