I suppose many people read this blog and assume that I’m some sort of creative workhorse, never stopping, never resting, burning the candle at both ends (as they say) and churning out endless works of creative brilliance powered by vast, sweeping moments of inspiration granted from on high.
Heck, nothing could be further from the truth.
I squeeze in a nap almost every day. I play video games whilst prone on the couch. I take the dog for long meandering walks in the park. I doom scroll. I sit idle while I try to work up the motivation to do something besides sitting idle. I’m just a guy.
I struggle with ideas. I run plots over and over and over in my head and then decide half way through that the story is going nowhere. I carry around empty notebooks. I put ideas in point form into my phone and then forget what I was trying to say on the topic. I tear up terrible paintings and use the back sides as scrap paper. I noodle on my musical instruments and ignore the pieces I should be practicing while I endlessly tune or wipe dust from the corners.
Creativity is a lot of things, but I don’t think I would personally call it a straight line.
Creativity is a mindset. Creativity is a duty to a long game. Creativity is holding the spirit of making and sharing and inventing and dreaming in your head—and then being ready to push on with the work when opportunity strikes, sure… but it is also habit.
I am all those things from before but also I block off time every day to write. I keep notes on my phone. I hang those musical instruments near a music stand so I can reach over and pluck them from the wall to play. I have rituals. I have schedules. I have deadlines. I have demands I put upon myself to get the work done through the chaos of life.
That’s long game consistency, and creativity often comes simply from getting the work done around other commitments and obligations. Under the category of Duty & Demand I’ll be writing more on this topic as the months wear on.
Terms FROm this POSt
- blog
- I admit, I am pretty old. And I started posting formatted words and photos online before the word blog had entered the common lexicon. Most people work in the medium of social platforms these days, but being both a product of my time and a stickler for content ownership and control, I still lean into and promote the idea that the blog (a content managed general purpose personal website) is the beating heart of the internet I once knew and loved.
- inspiration
- A vague concept I mention frequently on this blog but rarely define, I think the notion of being inspired is really at the foundational level, the seeds of creativity. Without inspiration, without muse, without spark creativity is just work or repetition or rote effort. Inspiration does not necessarily need to be monumental or epic or of the highest quality, but rather it is what is at the start of every creative process …until it flowers and drops more seeds of inspiration and the cycle repeats.
- just a guy
- In a jab at some modesty and self-deprecation, I admit I often need to remind myself that even just a guy can have an impact on the universe. I’m one person writing and sharing in a public space, and this is a caveat too often… but it’s also a gentle reminder that sometimes there are real people lurking behind digital curtains.
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