Difficulty =/= Meaning

There’s this quiet assumption embedded in how we approach work and talk about creativity: that time spent equals value earned. That a painting laboured over for a hundred hours is worth more than a sketch made in five minutes. That the piece you rewrote seventeen times matters more than the journal entry you dumped your messy and complicated feelings onto.

It even shows up when we talk about art and craft. Classical paintings are often praised for their technicality, compared to an abstract contemporary painting that “looks like something I could do.” But the act itself / the intent / the concept are the point.

We inherited this from somewhere older than capitalism, though capitalism made it gospel. Time = labour = value. We’ve internalized it so deeply that we often do not even notice when it’s shaping our relationship to our work. But what are we actually measuring here? Technical hours? Difficulty gets tangled up with value and meaning.

This is the same current that feeds urgency and perfectionism. We feel like we must “suffer” just enough to make the outcome deserving or worthwhile. The struggle feels like we are trying. On some level, it legitimizes our work.

Yet, if we are moved by something, then it took exactly as long as it needed to. An insight that arrives suddenly and with ease isn’t laziness, it’s listening. Some ideas arrive whole, and they aren’t any less valuable.

The ether doesn’t care how long it took, and neither should we.