<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"><channel><title>Commonplace Book</title><link>/tags/letting-go/</link><description>Recent content on Commonplace Book</description><generator>Hugo -- gohugo.io</generator><language>en-US</language><lastBuildDate>Thu, 12 Jun 2025 14:49:00 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="/tags/letting-go/index.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><item><title>Tom Waits on Letting Go</title><link>/posts/4d1a-tom-waits-letting-go/</link><pubDate>Thu, 12 Jun 2025 14:49:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>/posts/4d1a-tom-waits-letting-go/</guid><description>&lt;p&gt;In an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert&lt;sup id="fnref:1"&gt;&lt;a href="#fn:1" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref"&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt; &lt;sup&gt;, &lt;/sup&gt;&lt;sup id="fnref:2"&gt;&lt;a href="#fn:2" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref"&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;, Tom Waits shared his perspective on the creative process and how ideas for songs would torment him if he couldn&amp;rsquo;t write them down.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;So he starts to feel all of that old anxiety start to rise in him like, &amp;ldquo;I&amp;rsquo;m going to lose this thing, and I&amp;rsquo;ll be be haunted by this song forever. I&amp;rsquo;m not good enough, and I can&amp;rsquo;t do it.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/p&gt;</description><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">1</a></sup> <sup>, </sup><sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">2</a></sup>, Tom Waits shared his perspective on the creative process and how ideas for songs would torment him if he couldn&rsquo;t write them down.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>So he starts to feel all of that old anxiety start to rise in him like, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to lose this thing, and I&rsquo;ll be be haunted by this song forever. I&rsquo;m not good enough, and I can&rsquo;t do it.&rdquo;</p>
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<p>But instead of going through another cycle of self-doubt he came to the realization that he could let it go.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>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, &ldquo;Excuse me, can you not see that I&rsquo;m driving?&rdquo;</p>
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<div class="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes">
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<li id="fn:1">
<p><a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_your_elusive_creative_genius/transcript">https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_your_elusive_creative_genius/transcript</a>&#160;<a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">&#x21a9;&#xfe0e;</a></p>
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<li id="fn:2">
<p>Copy of the original interview, <a href="http://tomwaitslibrary.info/biography/interviews/play-it-like-your-hairs-on-fire/">http://tomwaitslibrary.info/biography/interviews/play-it-like-your-hairs-on-fire/</a>&#160;<a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">&#x21a9;&#xfe0e;</a></p>
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