[NOTE: So I will probably be on break for a week or so. In the meantime there are a whole bunch of good articles—and articles I wish were better—linked on the side there for you to… I don’t know… realize how OCD works I suppose. But that means I need to write about actually taking a break. Which won’t last long. But is a real issue when one has OCD and a project they take seriously.]

About fifteen days ago I’d ended a streak of writing where I had about a month’s worth of content queued up for this blog. I always have content queued up, and in fact I provide myself with something that absolutely does not help my anxiety—that is a constant number of days worth of content I have remaining on my computer desktop. So I can look at that number and feel ever more the failure, one notch down per day.

I am essentially obsessed with providing content every four days here, and have been able to since August of 2017.

During this time writing these articles to give myself a few weeks of a break, I wrote some very good content, as well content I felt was somewhat filler. But that aside, the most important thing that I did was expand my notes on articles I’d like to write. And those articles—I can see in my head—are going to be a lot of work for what should be some of the best content I’ve written.

So I am now battling an obsession involved in writing a blog about obsession (and of course other things that go with OCD.)

I feel everything would be best served if I took a break and spent the time necessary to perfect these much better works rather than keep in fear of not having enough content to hit my every-four-days deadlines.

But that’s not easy. I fear losing all of my readership I’ve worked for a year and eight months to garner. I feel we live in a world where once the constant content stops, things seem dead. I tried to lessen the feeling of this by removing the dates from my articles, as I do feel they’re evergreen.

So I sit here writing this. This is all true, and it has a lot to do with my OCD. But it is also filler to the extent I am writing it only because I see I have thirteen days of content left (that includes the three days that would trail the final article in the queue.)

I have no answers. My OCD needs me to constantly be in a state of working, lest I will feel like a failure. I’ve battled with this before. I quit painting for more than a decade and recently picked it up again and realized I can create work that is still deeply pleasing to myself (I really only paint for myself, which is contrary to what I am doing here with my writing, but the feeling is still the same. My not painting stuck in the back of my head as an indictment on my laziness, lack of skill, inability to work, and all sorts of things for a decade plus.)

And now I am obsessing over the fact that my obsession over deadlines for this blog is not allowing me to put my best work forward. So I have battling obsessions! I am battling obsessions and they are battling each other. Wonderful.

There is no answer to any of this, I will not be satisfied with any choice I make because that is… well… how my brain works.

So there you go, another article. That isn’t my best work, but that is perfectly on point. And therefore… good work? Does it matter that I’ve moved that number on my desktop from thirteen to seventeen?

Again… good work?

Good work?

Eh?