The Post-Finish Syndrome

Now that I have completed the 20th and last step in making the Bradley peony base I feel glad but also empty and even letdown.

This feeling, which on the face of it would appear to border on the perverse, is entirely familiar, not only to me but I think to many other people, too. I believe the phenomenon has a name, but, as that is not coming readily to mind, let's just call it the Post-Finish Syndrome for now. I go through this disconcerting period of deflation whenever I finish making something major.

One cause is regret over the ceasing of an experience that, though often painful and difficult, was nevertheless continually interesting and exciting. Another is the feeling that the finished product doesn't quite measure up to what was originally expected; it has several grievous flaws. This second cause is worse than the first, because, aside from possessing whatever it was that I made, almost always I went into the project mostly to see if I could pull it off, and so the venture has ended with a vague sense of failure.

But then, as several years go by, things change, while hardly being noticed. Eventually the flaws, having been lived with for a while, either disappear or become interesting features. You, a much more practical person, might ask, "Why weren't they just corrected?" The answers would be that for some reason I couldn't or that I just didn't get around to it or that I never can return to a project and touch it again, once it reaches its ostensibly finished state and I go on to the next thing.

But the shifts in perception of the object are not quite finished. A little later still something says, "Hmmm. This isn't bad at all." And then another year or two after that the same inner critic announces, "Hey, look! You know what? You may actually have committed a veritable masterpiece here!"

And so it goes, doesn't it?