In this episode of The War with Art, we pull another card from Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies deck and get a prompt that hits uncomfortably close: “Bridges — build — burn.”

From modular synth patches you create and then tear down, to monks spending days on intricate work only to wipe it clean, we talk about why building and burning is baked into the creative process. Sometimes you have to strip a piece back to its core idea. Sometimes you have to scare yourself a little. And sometimes you have to let go of what you’ve already built... even when sunk cost is screaming at you to keep it.

The guys also explore the deeper version: making something can be a bridge between who you are now and who you become after you’ve finished — and once you cross, you don’t really get to go back.

If you’ve got your own interpretation of the card, drop a comment as we’d love to hear it.

“Maybe you need to burn the bridge in order to make it not easy — and then rebuild something new.”

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Timestamps:

• 01:10 — What *Oblique Strategies* is (and why we’re using it)
• 02:40 — The card: “Bridges — build — burn”
• 03:50 — Burning as a creative tool: risk, conflict, and scaring yourself
• 06:10 — Modular synths: build the patch, then tear it down
• 07:15 — The monks: the work matters more than the artifact
• 12:05 — The deeper take: building a bridge to a new version of yourself
• 16:45 — Audience, tone, and the bridges you build (or burn) with words
• 19:10 — “Diet vanilla” and using the cards to push the work further

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Referenced in this episode:

• Oblique Strategies — Brian Eno & Peter Schmidt
• Sand Mandala: Sacred Art of Tibet (Thames & Hudson) — on the creation and ritual destruction of sand mandalas
• Sunk cost fallacy” (concept)

In this episode of The War with Art, we talk about the inner critic — that voice that shows up right when the work starts to matter.

Eric, George, and Sheldon dig into what it actually says and why it can sometimes be useful, but also how easily it can tip into full imposter syndrome. We also get into the difference between "done" and "perfect," why art is something you surrender rather than perfect, and that strange thing that happens when you've listened to your own work so many times that you can't tell if it's genuinely bad or if you're just sick of hearing it.

If you’ve got your own way of dealing with the inner critic, drop a comment — we’d love to hear it.

“If it were easy to make, there’d be no point in making it.”

Timestamps:

• 02:30 — What the inner critic actually says
• 04:30 — “Done vs perfect”
• 09:00 — When criticism turns into imposter syndrome
• 11:30 — The AI temptation
• 20:00 — Outnumbering the inner critic through collaboration

Referenced in this episode:

• Dilla Time by Dan Charnas
• Ratatouille — the critic archetype
• Theodore Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” (speech)

Pulling a random card from The Deck of Oblique Strategies, the guys discuss...

The guys talk about what they've learned over the past few months.

Thinking about the future means reflecting on past mistakes. What would you do differently? The WWA explores.

Choirs and spirituality... ok guys? Where will this one go?

George, Eric and Sheldon talk about all the effort and how that can turn to exhaustion.

Sheldon, George, and Eric sit down to talk about the vast landmine overthinking your art.