This week’s post might get a bit rambly, but I’ll try to provide some scaffolding to what I want to talk about. Incidentally, if you’re wondering why I would say something like that at the beginning of a written piece of work, it’s because I never go back through these posts and edit for content. They are all streams of consciousness and I just proofread for grammar and clarity. I don’t have time to go back and rewrite these to be essays. Which is part of why I came up with this post’s topic: creativity and how I try to make room for it in my life.
Creativity has always been a big part of my life, as it is for everyone really. We all just go about it in different ways. We may not all remember it, but almost all of us grew up with active imaginations because that’s just how kids figure out how the world works. We all grow up with books, movies, TV shows, music, art, and games that suggest new ideas we hadn’t thought of before, and it’s only natural to take those ideas and smash them together into new ones. And once in a while you come up with an idea that is completely new, and if you have the means to get it out into the world then it can inspire millions more after you.
For me growing up, the first outlet that I can remember using for my ideas was through writing short stories and poems. Of course none of my ideas were original back then, I was actually known for taking existing stories and modernizing them. I didn’t realize it at the time, obviously, but I was doing the common thing of adapting an old story for a new audience. It worked out pretty well for me though since a few of them were recognized for being really good for a kid, and one even turned into an actual play that my class put on for my high school.
During high school my outlets grew significantly as I started getting really into music, video editing, and programming. While I never actually got around to picking up an instrument until after college, my desire to play mostly began there when I started going to shows and seeing other friends play in bands. The video editing centered around mashing together songs I liked with clips of video from other things I liked. I had essentially stumbled into making AMVs (anime/animated music videos), and it was my music outlet for a while since I couldn’t make my own music. I did some other video projects in college, but nothing close to actually making a film. And as for programming, it was largely just making dumb websites and calculator games. Looking back on it, I didn’t see them so much as creative outlets as learning how to do it. Unlike my writing and videos, I had no real intention of having my programming projects viewed by others, I just did them for myself.
From college onward, the only real change was swapping the video editing with making music as writing and programming have stuck with me. While I had a great time making videos, it was too time consuming and it would only get worse if I wanted to improve on the skills I had. There’s only so much you can do with other peoples’ works, and to be a real editor I would’ve had to learn how to do effects and other advanced compositing that I didn’t want to learn. Learning to play, and eventually write my own, music was a lot more accessible and rewarding.
And that’s where I currently sit in terms of what areas I want to put my creative energy into. Writing, programming, and music. I know that I don’t have the patience to make videos of any kind these days, and I’ve never had an eye for visual design, whether it be drawing, painting, illustrating, or making graphics.
Of these three, the easiest one to do is obviously programming because that is what I do for a living. And as a job it is rewarding, especially when the end product is both elegant to look at (as code) and useful for others. The second easiest one is writing because it requires only something to write on and your brain. For the time being I am doing it all through these posts, but still aiming to do more. Making music is a little tougher now that I’m not in a band anymore. I have the means to come up with the music, but in order to actually listen to it I need to invest in learning some DAW software to make it happen. It’s either that or get a lot better at playing multiple instruments.
As I just mentioned, I do spend some time on writing these posts, but I want to do more. I would not qualify these as creative, I’m simply writing down what I’m saying in my head about a topic. It has been many years since I actually completed something that I would consider a creative work (the albums with my band don’t count here). Probably not since I did NaNoWriMo back in 2010. I find that rather disappointing.
What keeps me back? It shouldn’t be a surprise. It always comes down to prioritizing doing creative work over other things. I’ve been talking at length recently about passions and priorities, and the writing ideas I have in my head don’t quite reach either one of those driving factors. I think about the ideas all the time, particularly when in bed. Scoping out stories is the quickest way I know to actually fall asleep because it turns off the rest of my brain that’s constantly trying to relive past events. But, obviously, that doesn’t get me any closer to actually having a written story. None of the ideas are so good that I’m mindlessly driven to work on them, so I have to actively set aside time to work on anything. Sadly, playing games and watching videos are easier to do, so I default to those most days.
The nagging doubt is also always there. If I was passionate about these ideas, then I would find a way to make it happen. Since I don’t, then it must not be worthwhile right? This occurs to me all the time, and it’s a big reason why I have been okay with not pursuing these ideas for so many years. My stupid ego wants to see the completed projects because then people will praise my work, but it has largely come to terms with the idea that none of it will ever see the light of day. Making stuff is easy when you are young. You have all the time in the world and you don’t really care if it’s good or not. Now that I’m older, I have no time and my views change year after year, so I find it more difficult to believe that anything I have to say will matter.
I think that last point is the most poignant. While it is not required to struggle to make good art, it certainly helps. It makes it easier to empathize and create themes you want to get across to others. To some degree, the point of making art is to have other people relate to it. And I just don’t see myself as someone with a message needing to get out there. I’m a middle-class white guy, privileged as all hell, and have wanted for nothing my whole life. Basically, the last person anyone should ask for an opinion about anything. On top of that I’m not an expert at anything, so I can’t even come from that angle.
But at the same time I know that if I never get these ideas out of my head, they will never go away. So even if I have nothing important to say, perhaps it’s worth my time just to say I did it? It will always be a hard choice because I have no intention of making doing creative stuff my actual job, so the opportunity costs have to be weighed against just relaxing and having fun. Between time needed to work, commute, eat, sleep, and do the other necessities, I only end up with 15-20 hours a week to do what I want. And of course I want to spend some of that time being with friends and people I love.
I think I’m going to continue taking the fun for now. But I could put aside even three hours a week to work on some stuff, that’d be a good step in the right direction. I can spare at least that much.