What it is
Kant described a dove that feels the air’s resistance and imagines it would fly even better in empty space. It doesn’t realize the air is what holds it up.
André Gide applied it to art: “Art is always the result of constraint. To believe that it rises higher as it becomes freer is to believe that what keeps a kite from rising is its string.”
How it shows up for me
My best work has always had a box around it: a deadline, a budget, a kid waking up at six. I still fantasize about unlimited time, but I know that I’d mostly waste it.