The Urge To Echo Existing Ideas

Writing this from Brazil.

I've been noticing something when I'm consuming content. No matter the medium.

Music, visuals, concepts, artists, projects. Sometimes consciously, sometimes casually. Almost every time something catches my attention, the thought appears very quickly:

"Oh... I could do that."

Not as desire. Not even necessarily as admiration. Just a factual recognition of relevance.

My brain immediately maps the thing. I see the necessary tools. I see the upcoming process. I see the decisions that would need to be made. Within seconds, it becomes technically accessible. Not hypothetical. Achievable.

Sometimes it could plausibly live inside a version of my project. Sometimes it clearly does not, and in those cases, the thought fades without friction. But when it aligns with a possible version of me, that is where it signals adjacency.

Then, there's another layer:

A simple internal comparison that says: this works, this exists and I am capable of building something similar. Not better. Not worse. Just possible. There is also a subtle positioning reflex here: an internal check of my own capability against what exists. It is not negative. It is a natural part of navigating a creative field.

I suspect this is one of the mechanisms behind trends. When something works publicly, it becomes visible and legible. Once it is legible, it becomes reproducible. For anyone with the technical ability, the barrier is no longer skill. It is decision-making, and specifically, the commitment cost of choosing one path over another.

That part has become increasingly important in my life. Fast and well-timed decisions tend to lead to better outcomes. I'm trying hard to work on that.

But carrying on...

When many people share that same internal reflex of "I could do that", trends grow exponentially. Obviously, a lot of people just want to jump on the cool train. But my point is that the possibility itself is cognitively cheap. For me, the issue is rarely acting on every impulse. Most of the time, I don't. The issue is what happens after.

The idea stays. Lingering. Half-formed. Floating somewhere in the background. That's where creative noise creeps in. Occupying mental bandwidth without producing anything tangible.

Sometimes it triggers guilt. Sometimes mild frustration. Sometimes a sense that I am not making clear, long-term decisions for the shape of my work. There are many parallel paths that could exist. That abundance is not inherently negative. It signals flexibility and structural permeability. Too many options become noise only if I do not manage them consciously.

For a long time, I thought this meant I lacked clarity. That if I were truly aligned with myself, these impulses would not appear. That is not true. I think this is simply how my brain processes creative input. Probably how many others do as well. It doesn't consume passively. It reverse-engineers.

Have you ever found yourself trying to understand how a sound was made during a live concert or while casually listening to music? Yeah. That's me. Probably a lot of you reading this too.

Everything becomes material before it becomes meaning.

That "I could do that" thought, to me, isn't ambition. It's pattern recognition paired with competence, confidence and relevance.

Instead of letting ideas orbit indefinitely, I am trying to resolve them faster. To decide whether they deserve attention at all.

When something triggers that reflex, I ask:

- Does this connect emotionally with what I'm actually trying to express right now?

- Does it fit the broader narrative I'm building?

- Is this expandable or is it only a brief interesting moment?

- Could it push me into a useful structural rupture or would it only distract?

If the answer is no, I consciously let it go. If the answer is yes, then it earns attention.

I will still let things linger sometimes. I will still overthink. That is fine. The goal is not to eliminate the impulse. It is to protect coherence while leaving space for evolution. The world will continue producing things that trigger "I could do that". The real work then is deciding which of those possibilities actually belong to me.

That is where identity is built.

Fittingly, I released a track called "Identity" last week.

Thank you for reading "Inside The Mind Of An Artist".

Until next time,

Vítor