In an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert1 2, Tom Waits shared his perspective on the creative process and how ideas for songs would torment him if he couldn’t write them down.
So he starts to feel all of that old anxiety start to rise in him like, “I’m going to lose this thing, and I’ll be be haunted by this song forever. I’m not good enough, and I can’t do it.”
But instead of going through another cycle of self-doubt he came to the realization that he could let it go.
And instead of panicking, he just stopped. He just stopped that whole mental process and he did something completely novel. He just looked up at the sky, and he said, “Excuse me, can you not see that I’m driving?”