Flowers and pearls: sweat, blood and creativity

Creation is a fermenting process and sometimes agonizing, painful, existential. And just like giving birth, afterwards you are exhausted, diffusely happy, diffusely proud and, above all, glad that it's over. And also a little blinded: Isn't it the prettiest, cleverest baby (probably not)? Or completely terrified: Isn't it the most horrible, useless thing I've ever thought of (probably not, unfortunately)?

That's why we would like to protect it a little longer. The work, the idea, the text, the spot, the concept, the logo - the result of this inwardly raging micro-apocalypse. What if it is not properly understood? If it touches no one, interests no one? If it fizzles out quietly - or at the wrong time, like a firecracker that goes off too early?

At least disturb

Criticism is like the weather: sometimes surprising, sometimes less so, sometimes sunny, sometimes icy - rarely balanced, but often inappropriate. That's part of it. Because good creation doesn't want to please everyone - it wants to say something, show something, disturb something or simply stick. That's why the worst of the terrible criticism is: That the work under discussion does absolutely none of these things.

The more difficult the process was, the more criticism there is. Unfortunately, suffering is no guarantee of quality. Something that has been thrown out can be just as good or bad as something that has been thought through for a long time. That's unfair, but true.

And yet you do it again and again. Because there is no satisfaction quite like when something suddenly takes shape - out of all the fog in your head, out of all the loose ends, out of what was previously just a fleeting idea.

Fear of the weather

It becomes problematic when you no longer dare to do anything because of criticism - out of fear of the weather, so to speak. When you prefer to sketch forever instead of finishing something. When everything gets stuck in the draft stage. And no, even a finished work is of course never really "finished" and certainly not perfect.

You're always wiser with hindsight - and with a bit of distance you usually realize that the baby wasn't actually that pretty/smart/unique. But it was actually quite okay. And sometimes the unexpected happens and you realize: Wow, that was actually really good. But mostly it's just the former, and that's a hell of a lot.

Because ultimately, good creation is not the result of perfection, but of courage. The courage to show something that you don't yet fully understand. The courage to face judgment - and your own gaze. The hardest of all.

Analyzed since 2025 Sarah Pally In her column "Blossoms and Pearls", she uses industry-related terms and comments on them with a personal touch, from a linguistic perspective - as well as with a precise view of developments in the industry. Pally is a partner in the Partner & Partner agency in Winterthur. She has been working in the fields of content marketing, text/concept and storytelling in the communications and marketing sector for 15 years.