Continued from an earlier post: Creative Positive (Part Two)

I continue to remind myself that, as a creative, refraining from posting positive things into social spaces not only is a kind of self-censorship but it leaves gaps that are quickly filled by negative things.

I was more active online in the weeks leading up to the unity referendum that happened here in Alberta, Canada in October.  It was not necessarily about joining into the fray and shouting partisan slogans or reposting dubious information.  I did my share to “get out the vote” and sent numerous reminders to friends and offers of free babysitting (which no one took me up on) but mostly I just posted non-political stuff.

I kept sending links to my running website.

I took dozens of autumn photos and shared them everywhere.

I fired up the frequency of my back posting from this and the other writing project I’m doing about algorithms and technology topics.

I shared positive thoughts and whimsical aphorisms about all sorts of things that popped into my head.

And I just tried to fill the space: not necessarily to interfere with the conversation, but because that’s my role. My job, unpaid and often thankless, is to clutter up your social media feed with the mundane. It is to drop art into your apps, pack your photo scrolling with pics from nature, and remind you that real life is bigger than political bullshit, that it continues even when the mouths of politicians stop aren’t flapping and hucksters of every stripe aren’t trying to needle a bit more power.

Rare moments, but they exist. They need to exist. They need to continue to exist.

Despite the evidence to contrary, life is bigger than all that.

Art. Thought. Story. Music. Colour. Trails. Sunsets. All of it must keep going no matter what. When they stop, when we stop being creative positive, then the negative wins and what is there left worth fighting for.