I’ve had a draft post going for a long while now with some various ramblings about the state of the world, but it turns out that’s a rather weighty topic. Maybe too dense for the second post on a (presumably) unknown blog. So instead, I’ve been thinking a lot about creativity lately, especially how to maintain it. As anybody who has experienced creativity can attest — and I would imagine that is categorically the vast majority of people — it can be immensely fleeting. As somebody building a career on the basis of creativity, such a concept is terrifying
I have a rather unhealthy tendency towards mental stagnation. I imagine many people encounter this; the world is difficult and it’s far easier to consume content than to create art. I’ve been trying to pay attention to how many hours of my life vanish into a valueless abyss of internet content. Not that internet content isn’t valuable, moreso that a lot of it isn’t valuable to me. I would imagine most people are addicted to the internet; it’s hard not to be when it has become foundational to our cultures, politics, our worlds.
What’s funny is that combating all this is theoretically easy. Making art has rarely been more accessible. If you can read this blog, you have the technology required to make music. Anybody with a pencil can draw, or write. Unfortunately, the simple act of starting often seems a monumental challenge. Having spent several years entirely invested in music, I’ve already overcome that hundreds of times. But, the unfortunate reality is that if you invest your creativity into one thing for too long, a new challenge will present itself. Burnout.
I’m convinced that creative burnout doesn’t need to exist. I think it creatively serves the same purpose as boredom; motivation to change. The thing is that when your life is tied to your creativity, this can be a painful process. But, if burnout is motivation to change, what happens when you precede the process? Why not change ~before~ you feel the need to?
I don’t think this is a new idea, but it’s an idea I’ve never committed to with discipline. And it’s something that fascinates me, because what I’ve found is the more diverse my creative outlets, the longer I can sustain creativity. This blog is one of several “pilot studies” on myself, a starting attempt to branch out how I’m creatively active, to sustain myself longer from the same inspiration. Maybe that inspiration has been musically exhausted, but that doesn’t mean it’s been visually, narratively, or emotionally exhausted.
The picture attached here is one of several draft ideas I’ve taken in thinking about my current musical project. It’s an EP, maybe an album, that I’ve been immersed in for over a year now. A funny thing happened though, where much of the music that inspired this picture has been scrapped, and in turn the picture has inspired new music. Art can be self fulfilling if given the means..