Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

I think you explained this very clearly and beautifully. I think I know exactly what you mean.

I used to find a lot of comfort in being able to get myself into this state of mind easily, usually, like you, by just calmly observing natural surroundings in environments that are special to me.

That was in my late teens and early twenties. I'm now about 15 years older and find it so much harder.

I think it has something to do with living a hectic adult life, and I really hope I'll be able to find back to that some time.

Part of me really believes that to experience life in this way is what we're here for and modern life's way of distancing us from this experience is something we need to be very wary of.

Paradoxically, I also often feel that some tasks are _too easy_ and won't start them because they're simple, uninteresting, or unrewarding. I feel like I can execute them perfectly, so I put off getting started.

Everyone typically has their imagined "edge", the thing that they believe makes them special and unique and superior in some way. Nerds look at jocks and say "they're athletic, but I am the smart one." Blue collar people look at rich people and say "They have a lot of money, but I know hard work and have principles." Everyone has some internal mental defense for why other people that are outperforming them aren't actually "better" than them because, hey, we're the main character!

It seems OP has just replaced one of these with a different version regarding ego shedding.

For many of us writing is tough and quite hard work so it's understandable why many don't write much.

For instance, when I look back at my posts on HN—which I rarely do because it's embarrassing—I see typos, wrong word usage and grammatical errors that I didn't notice at the time. I only wish I could correct them.

I had a colleague who is now deceased but he could take pages and pages of handwritten notes and they were perfectly legible, logically coherent and could be essentially typed into papers with little or no editing. I envy his ability, I only which I could write with such accuracy and fluency.

I've often wondered why I can't do that. It seems to me that too many concepts come into my head at once and I lack the ability to sort them quickly and write them out in a linear/coherent fashion with enough speed.

The result is that editing can take more time than the actual writing. It's somewhat of a disincentive, so much of what I'd like to write doesn't get written.

It's interesting to compare say Mozart and Beethoven in this regard. Looking at Mozart's handwritten scores one sees page after page of almost perfect notes without cross-outs or alterations. On the other hand some of Beethoven's scores are such an unholy mess they're almost illegible.

On evidence, it seems the mental processes of both these geniuses worked in quite different ways.

Edit: it seems to me whether one likes writing or not one has to do so to communicate efficiently and effectively. I've often wondered how many great ideas have been lost because they were never documented.