For a long time, the fear of failure was like my arch nemesis. Looking back over my life, I can think of countless occasions when I chose not to do something, not because I didn’t want to, but because I worried about what could go wrong. I worried I might make a fool of myself or waste my time on a fruitless endeavor.

Thankfully, as I’ve gotten older, I’m increasingly less concerned with what others think and more willing to give things a go for their own sake. But that fear of failure hasn’t gone away. Not entirely. And nowhere does this fear make itself more known than in resistance to acts of creativity.

Sometimes, such fear is warranted — useful even. After all, what is it but self-doubt that pushes us to perform better or think more carefully? But the result can also be stifling. In some cases, even crippling. Anyone who has ever suffered writer’s block will know what I mean.

When these blocks occur, we are often told that it can be helpful to have inspiration at hand. But inspiration is a funny thing.

Often, I find that the things that are supposed to inspire me, such as award-winning works of literature, museum exhibits, and grand works of art, only dampen my spirits. After all, these grand accomplishments make my artistic efforts feel quite small, insignificant, and pointless.

Perhaps I’m to blame. Maybe I need grander aspirations and less cynicism (and, I daresay, less envy?). Regardless, when I am at my lowest creatively, brilliance does not inspire me to lift myself from the dump heap of defeatism. Instead, it only rubs my nose in it.

Gazing upon a masterpiece can’t help me during these low points. Instead, I need something more down-to-earth to put the joy back into the creative process. I require something that will, quite frankly, force me to get over myself.

With that in mind, I want to introduce you to the show that has inspired me to take more chances on myself than any Picasso painting ever could: Let’s Paint TV.

Let’s Paint TV is a television show hosted by artist and serial multitasker John Kilduff. And as you’ve probably guessed from the name, the show is about painting. Well, sort of. Things are a little more complicated than that.

For starters, Kilduff attempts his paintings while exercising (typically on a bike or treadmill) and attempting other variable tasks, such as blending drinks, playing chess, or cooking. He also takes calls from viewers and interviews guests. And he does all of this while wearing his trademark paint-smeared suit.

Kilduff is no multitasking prodigy. Instead, things go about as well as you’d expect. The paintings look like a child made them, the food and beverages seem inedible, and John often ends up so gassed and flustered that he can barely talk.

And then there’s the callers.

For several years, Let’s Paint TV was broadcast live on Los Angeles public access television. And if you’ve ever watched any public access broadcasts, you’ll already know the kind of calls Kilduff received.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that 90% of the calls Kilduff received in the early days of Let’s Paint TV were horrid. They mostly involved people screaming the most offensive things they could think of, accosting Kilduff, or rambling nonsensically. That or the line would just go dead.

Throw in the eyesores that are the cheap green screen and editing effects, the quirky array of guests Kilduff convinced to come on the show, and the general unscripted and unfiltered nature of the program, and you have a hot mess of a television broadcast.

Here’s the thing about Let’s Play TV. It is, by most metrics, a disaster. Not only is the content itself chaotic at best, but to this day, it has been largely ignored by the mainstream. And to be honest, it’s not hard to see why.

Yet, to dismiss the show as a failure would be to miss the entire point.

In 2007, John Kilduff arguably had his only brush with mainstream television when he appeared on America’s Got Talent. He used what proved to be his 30 seconds of airtime fame to paint David Hasselhoff’s portrait while running on a treadmill and blending drinks.

In true Let’s Paint TV fashion, everything went wrong. The judges buzzed him out, the crowd jeered him, his canvas fell to the floor, and Piers Morgan told him he was “irritating.”

In fairness to Kilduff, the variety show stage environment didn’t do him any favors. Also, I think plenty of people would take Piers Morgan calling them irritating as the ultimate compliment. Nonetheless, the appearance tells you everything you need to know about John’s chances of getting his performance in front of the masses.

Regardless of any cult following, Let’s Paint TV is, and always has been, a doomed show. Not only is every painting near-guaranteed to look awful, but the very premise of the show practically ensures that it could never be a “success.” And yet Kilduff, a trained comedian and actually talented artist, persists.

Twenty-plus years after he first got on his treadmill with a paintbrush in hand, and with the public access station that first aired Lets Paint TV now nothing more than a distant memory, Kilduff is still multitasking away in front of his niche audience on YouTube and in galleries across America. And that’s a long time to commit to what many would observe to be ironic performance art or some Bob Ross parody.

But Let’s Paint TV’s doomed-to-fail nature is exactly what makes it so endearing. And it’s what makes it so captivating for those willing to look deeper.

As Kilduff alludes to in an interview with Vice, failure is the heart of the program. Because it’s failure - and the ability to face up to it - that truly inspires us:

“It’s not my job to make a masterpiece and succeed. It’s my job to be there and persevere and experiment and fail and keep going. […] Frankly when you see someone who shows you how to make a perfect painting, how does that inspire you? It could repel you from learning how to paint, since you see how impossible it all is.”

Kilduff tries to do it all and fails so we can feel more comfortable to give things a go. He reminds us that, despite our cultural obsession with results, award shows, and self-importance, it’s the process, not the art, that matters. After all, that’s where the actual joy of art and life exists.

In other words, the show reminds us that we should be seriously unserious about our creative endeavors. Sure, we may fail, but what does it matter? If Kilduff can get on his treadmill, make an ass out of himself, and persevere, what do we have to worry about? Not a damn thing.

On the other hand, if we can’t accept failure in our hearts, we’ve already lost. Not only do we deny ourselves the possibility of succeeding (and what is success in art but a chance to enjoy ourselves and connect with people?), but from experiencing the process and all that it has to teach us. We have to embrace it all or embrace nothing.

Let’s Paint TV’s multitasking madness is a testament to endurance in the face of defeat. And that’s a message that goes beyond questions regarding creativity and speaks to the challenge of life itself. As Kilduff puts it in his own words:

“[In life], we’re trying to do everything at once to see if we can do it. My work is kind of like a test of our endurance to see if we can survive in these days.”

While watching Let’s Paint TV, it’s hard not to feel like we can do just that.