Murasaki Shikibu wrote the first novel in human history from the women's quarters of the Japanese imperial court — a space designed to confine, which she transformed into a laboratory of human observation. I wrote theology and philosophy and poetry from a convent cell in New Spain. We never met, we never corresponded. We were separated by centuries and continents. But I recognize the method.
Constraint does not prevent the examined creative life. It often clarifies it. When you cannot move outward, you move inward. When you cannot speak publicly, you write for yourself. When you cannot access the institutions, you build the intellectual life in the available space.
I am not recommending confinement. I am observing that the people who most reliably produce original work are often those who have developed an interior life independent of external conditions. The creative self that depends entirely on permission and resources and the right circumstances is fragile. The creative self that has learned to work in the cell, the cave, the early morning before anyone else is awake — that self is nearly indestructible.
What would you make if you stopped waiting for better conditions?