Roots – Part Two: Da Vinci Journal Syndrome

Day 25 – 1:32 AM (Guest Quarters)

Been spending a lot of time at the ZIH lately, poring over the mountain of info there. I’ve been trying to document more of the crazy details of the early days… even leading up to when the “King” first met the “Monk.” Surprisingly, the historical recollections from the first decade or two were impressively detailed. But today, I had to fast-forward my studies a bit and delve into the da Vinci era. I suppose it makes sense that my da Vinci fascination continues over here, especially upon confirming that he had a brief stay on the island.

So I started rummaging through old scans… or docs… or maybe pictures of docs, not sure. But whatever they are, they are bad-ass. Started scoping all of Leonardo’s meticulously detailed notebooks, circa late 15th century. Mindblowing! We’re talking cool illustration-based content dealing with painting, architecture, and human anatomy, like you might expect. But then there’s all of this crazy mechanical shit; a helicopter, a tank, a machine gun, a fucking submarine even… all way, way, way ahead of its time. A scary-advanced mind, for sure.

Still, it could be said that, for all of his genius, Leo was something of an underachiever in terms of completed content… which I take great relief in reporting, for obvious reasons. And while I am in no way trying to draw comparisons between my plight and the towering brilliance of Leonardo da Vinci, I do have to mention a broader parallel… a universal syndrome that Leo seemed to deal with that I believe many creative folks from all levels of development can relate to: the articulation, discussion and/or envisioning of creative ideas that are ultimately never made manifest.

Isn’t this something that we all deal with from time to time? Granted, my journals, docs, proposals, treatments, manifestos and incomplete manuscripts aren’t nearly as cool as the da Vinci journal collection I’ve been eye-balling. But today, I had to seriously consider a rather poignant question along these lines:

Is there something about the detailed documentation of a creative idea that diminishes the creator’s desire to actually see the idea to its completion?

I’ve heard fiction authors advise writers not to discuss key plot points with people when working on a novel for this very reason. They argue that once you articulate the thrust of the story to someone, that might be it; you’ve articulated your story, and maybe even gotten a reaction. Story told; story happily received. Why bother going through all the work to finish and publish something that you’ve already expressed on some level? Why not move on to another story now?

Sure, one could counter that you, the writer, might want to reach larger numbers of readers, and that would compel you to get that book done and published. I can see that. But it’s also foreseeable that, in some cases, for some people, it’s somehow enough for you to have expressed your story—or your brilliant idea—in a thorough enough way that this somehow satiates you.

Or maybe, just by merely documenting your creation and deeply contemplating the vision of its completion, it creates enough satisfaction that your idea has been birthed into the world on some level and, again, there is a sense of manifestation there. These are the things I was considering as I saw all of that raw, dense, ass-kicking intellectual property in da Vinci’s journals, and then flash-backed to all of my unrealized shit.

Why did I have so much unpublished and/or unmanifested material hanging around? I mean, no doubt, it’s easy to jump on the mega-productivity bandwagon here in Zentauria, see everyone doing great work, and then feel inspired to do the same. That’s the good news. But that doesn’t tell me why I’ve been such a fucking slacker in so many ways. Is it the popular fear of success or fear of failure theories, as has been suggested to me a time or two? I don’t buy it. I’ve created a ton of stuff—some succeeded, some didn’t—but the result has never much mattered to me (although my preference is always that my work finds a welcome home with many).

No… clearly, for a while now, I’ve been engaged in only one side of the process for a lot of my work: immersed in the harvesting and development of all of this material, but somehow devoid of that natural urgency to complete and project it out to the heavens.

Why?

Shall we call this Da Vinci Journal Syndrome, or DJ Syndrome for short? (Catchy, right?) If so, what is the workaround?