I suppose the answer is to work smarter, not harder. If one method isn't working, try another method. Perhaps this defeatism is simply possible depression and low self-esteem talking. Hardly anyone is going to suck at everything, or will never improve. Even genuinely retarded people learn to be at least slightly better over time.

My personal answer to this, OP, is that you are correct. We are not Haruhis: there definitely exist lots of things we cannot possibly do no matter how hard we try (and which talented people effortlessly excel at), so keeping at them after realizing those unbreakable limits is just a showing of stupid and ridicule stubbornness, not just to others but (more importantly) to yourself.

However, there's some possibility of ethical value in how we face such situations. To either go and throw yourself against that wall (acknowledging that it's a wall) or give up entirely and destroy everything (cause you won't settle for anything but the impossible), not blaming on the situation but because you've decided to go either way (cause you believe it's the right thing to do and disregard the consequences), that is a legitimate proof of will. That way, sucking all the blame and leaving all back in your hands, you might still be an utter failure of a performer (which you were bound to be anyway) but you'd have succeeded in living as a free and honest man (even within this world that you do not control).

From what you're saying, you're apparently drawing for others, since you care so much about what they'll think and what their response will be to your works. You'll never move forward nor will you succeed in anything until you stop being so self conscious about others and until you start doing things for your own pleasure and not in pursuit of attention or success.

Stop comparing yourself to others and evaluate if you actually enjoy writing/drawing. As >>16118 said you shouldn't do it for others since it's impossible to please everyone, start with yourself instead.

I've done quite a bit of amateur level design for video games and even though none of my publicly released maps are even close to the popular ones, I'm not really bothered by it since I had fun making them. I've also received both positive and negative feedback and the key is to not see the negative feedback as an insult. Use it as something to improve yourself with.

A recent post from one of my favourite authors, it might sound dumb but it honestly did inspire me to work harder:

>Yes, there are cases where people put their work out there, and it isn’t good enough. There are also voices that will never be heard, because we see others failing and we assume the same will happen to us. You have people in your life saying you have talent, and you want to think they are biased. You want to ignore them. You have other people saying you don’t have what it takes, and you think this is tough love, that they know the truth of it. It’s easier to listen to the latter than the former, sometimes.

>Dare to fail, people. I dare to fail every day. Sometimes I do fail. But stuffing that application into an envelope and tearing it up year after year like this young man did is a far greater travesty. If you make a fool of yourself, the world will move on. And so will you. But if you succeed . . . well, the world will stop for a moment and take notice. And neither you nor them will ever forget that.

http://www.hughhowey.com/do-you-not-believe-in-yourself/

Who cares if it's terrible? Are you trying to win people over? Are you trying to make friends? Are you looking for recognition? Reputation? A job? Being better than others is just a competition on the social ladder and if you're anything like the average user on this site, chances are you don't give a shit about any of those things to begin with and even go as far to disconnect yourself from all those things entirely, so why would you give a shit about it with your personal projects?

This isn't about your personal feelings towards what you're making. If it was, you'd realize quality doesn't matter and that just by creating and getting your thoughts on paper you'll eventually get better at what you're doing so the initial rough start wouldn't mean anything; especially so since you'd be doing it for personal fulfillment so you wouldn't have to share it with the world in order to feel good about it.

This is all about how you feel about others and you think they'll feel about you. Failures? Wasting their time? Who's wasting their time? Amateurs who are managing to put things together and enjoy the process regardless of skill level or *you* hiding in a corner too afraid to take any steps because you're afraid of what the world will think of you? If you're really that afraid, take an anonymous approach, use a penname--or better yet, just don't put your embarrassing shit online for the world to see it until you eventually improve enough that you feel you can share your work. Who will know it's you? No one will know, not if you don't tell them. You're random anon on the internet, no one gives a fuck about you or what you make except for the random passerby who feels like pointing out your flaws, just like any other place on the internet. No reason to stop creating by any accounts.

Being bad isn't a waste of time either, not as long as it's what you want to be doing. If it's what you want to do, then fucking sit down and enjoy yourself, Haruhidamn. No reason to avoid it just because you'll never be on top of the food chain. Revel in being shitty, have fun with it, know that the world has ZERO expectations for you, and you should also have zero expectations for yourself. You could draw fucking stickmen and people would think "yeah man, that's what I expected". If you had skill, you know what people would expect from you? Fucking amazing masterpieces. If you started to fuck up your art, people would just stare you down and wonder "what the fuck are you doing?". Worse yet, as a skilled individual, you have even higher expectations for yourself, which can throw you into a horrible spiral of depression when things start to turn out wrong. When you look at it, being a unskilled loser really gives you the perk of being able to do whatever the fuck you want, because right off the bat you know "I'm allowed to fuck this up as badly as I want". Hell, if you need to soften the blow, you could tell the world you're 15 years old and suddenly your shitty art will look like masterpieces to them.

It's like sitting down and watching something new or playing a new game, if you have high expectations for it, you're going to be disappointed. If you have low expectations, you can only meet those expectations or be pleasantly surprised when it outdoes those expectations. Congratulations, by being a member on this site, chances are you are well acquainted with having low expectations of yourself. Now apply that to how you feel about your creations. I know, it's hard, because the moment you start creating, all your expectations go sky-high since what you have in your head is hard to put on paper and it takes fucking-forever to get to the point to make things look like how they're in our head. So don't focus on how it is inside your head, just acknowledge that being shitty isn't objectively a bad thing by all accounts. Being shitty means you don't have to compete with anyone. Think about it, you're actually free to do as you please with no reputation whatsoever to tarnish.

Honestly, if you're a social recluse in real life, you should really apply that frame of mind to your projects, it helps a lot with the perfectionism and self-esteem issues. Most importantly, it lets you learn how to actually enjoy yourself. Comparing yourself to others? You're comparing yourself to the social ladder. Of course, if you care about the social ladder and are still desperately trying to climb it, I guess this entire post is irrelevant. But this, this is my take on personal projects. There's no reason to neglect an aspect of your life just because you'll never be a world champion. You're at the bottom of the ladder already, you have nothing to lose by messing around.

>>16488
That's great. Never would've expected him to say something like this.

>>16489
"Don't be sad because it's over. Smile because it happened" - Adolf Hitler

"90% of the quotes found on the internet are misattributed" - Joseph Goebbels

>>16492
Was the internet even out already back then?

>>16492
This
"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that you can't always depend on their accuracy" - Charlemagne
>>16490
Actually this quote was by Dr. Seuss (sorry if you already knew and I'm just sounding like a jerk)
>>16493
The internet wasn't a formed idea until the 60's in which they began developing such methods under funding, as it was intended for clearer communications through the new and primitive computer network model.