I'm done with dreams
this is my call for real things
Georgia O’Keeffe’s words hit me, hard:
"I’m disgusted with dreams now—I want real things—live people to take hold of—to see—and to talk to—Music that makes holes in the sky."
I’m disgusted too.
Big dreams can feel like a trap. They’re stretched out, shiny, fluffy—so big they stop feeling real. I’ve pitched those kinds of dreams, selling billion-dollar visions to investors who wanted nothing less. The pressure to make something planetary, something for the masses, strips it of its origin. Dreams like that? They stop being about creation and start being about survival.
When the dream gets too big, it stops being a dream and becomes a weight. A thing that pulls you under instead of lifting you up.
The Discomfort of Dreams
I know what it feels like to sit in that discomfort—the negativity, the doubt, the endless questioning of whether I’m good enough, whether the work is enough, whether I’m even on the right path.
That’s where the structure comes in. Yesterday, on the first day of the new year, the scaffolding I built for myself saved me. It wasn’t fancy. It was just a plan, a clear set of tasks to focus on. But it caught me when I started to spiral.
Even when the voice in my head was loud—You’re behind in life and work. You’re not worthy. You’ll never make this work—the structure silenced it. It pulled me back to the work, to the real things in front of me, and gave me a way through.
This is the part of creation no one talks about: the layers of unseen work it takes to make something visible.
The discipline, the struggle, the constant recalibrating. That’s what Work Unseen is all about. Layer by layer, brick by brick, I’m building something real.
The Shift to Real Things
O’Keeffe said she wanted “real things,” and I feel that.
Last year, I shared my no-strategy strategy in this post. It was my attempt to embrace freedom and fluidity in my work, but in the end, it didn’t work for me. It was too wrought, and frankly, too unstructured.
I realized that what I needed wasn’t an absence of strategy but a simple, foundational task. Something as basic as creating the habit: open Notion. That small step became the gateway to momentum, a way to ground myself in action.
Yesterday, for the first time in a long time, I felt connected to the work. I didn’t overthink it. I didn’t try to perfect it. I just let it flow. That flow didn’t come from inspiration—it came from the structure I’d set up. It came from removing friction and building boundaries that freed me to create. I thought back to this post by Anna Mackenzie, where she perfectly captures the freedom that structure can provide: our heads might stay in the clouds, but all we need to do is open the notebook and get to work.
Real things aren’t always beautiful. Sometimes they’re ugly, raw, and unfinished. Sometimes they look like ripping up paper, smashing clay, or pounding out messy words on a keyboard.
Right now, I’m craving the messy. I want to work with my hands, cut and tear and glue. I want to get off the computer and feel the texture of the work again.
QUESTION FOR YOU: What are the “real things” you’re craving right now? What layers of unseen work are you laying down?
Love this. I’m craving working more IRL with people
I have been sick from a burnout for 1,5 years now (I'm based in Sweden where this is possible without a loss of income, health insurance and safety). I feel like I am getting stronger and finally healthier but as I grow into a new version of my old productive self, I feel like I am craving for change. I crave almost immediate change as in "get me out of this state, I'm ready to get back out again" but also long term change. I will need a change of work, leave my industry behind or else I will struggle and eventually go under again. As I am, every day, I am working on getting better, unseen by others but also by myself - only after a year has passed I can look back on the time passed and realize how much better I have become. Change in small increments doesn't feel like anything is happening. At the same time, I do a lot of planning for the future, looking around, browsing for options. What this does to me, though, unseen by anyone and even almost undetected by me, is that this laying of groundworks for the future is actually anxiety. I struggle with interospection so it wasn't until a dear, smart friend pointed it out to me that what feels like work is actually a fear of loss of control. So the work I am trying to do now, still mostly unseen, is to overcome my internal stress and anxiety and to put myself at calm that time will eventually change my situation if I let it and that my time will come.