That's a really insightful thought. Funny enough, I was just listing to a talk on Jung when I read this. I needed to hear this.

When you do this long enough, you know that everything is a process, every failure a key to the next door, especially the uncomfortable junctures. I sometimes will even turn on the pressure cooker, so that 'it' can break. That the pressure under the limitation will build to the point of pushing through into new energy.

When I look back, I see those 'third options' only opening by the pressure of the absurdities surrounding the current options.

There is a type of cognitive dissonance that permeates creatives; continually doing the things we don't want, and even those contrary to our desires, thinking it will lead to that thing we do desire, even though it's proven over and over not to lead to the carrot. And of course we could be looking for the 'carrot,' in the wrong place.

Others may point out that those that persist, do finally make it... but, I really think they find it more through the process you've stated; pressing through to an unseen other solution .. Not by these absurd methods of the creative business. Only through the persistence do those other options become clear.

thanks for that... Just writing this post helped me think more clearly about it.