Intro - Why am I writing about the desire to create and share?
Hello, welcome back to the blog.
One of the tenets I live my life by is that every story is worth sharing.
I’ve lost the desire to share. I miss the feeling…
I’m hoping that by the end of these 7 days, I can create and share something.
I wonder if not wanting to share anything is a symptom of something bigger.
Day 1 - 08/01/2024 I Feel Lost…
I feel like I have nothing I would like to share?? Let’s unpack what’s going on there.
It’s a combination of :
Feeling like I don’t have anything worthy of sharing.
Not interested in people’s opinions/generally being very antisocial
I thought, let me start at step 0.
Step 0, is knowing what you would be interested in sharing (I think).
Here is my list:
Music?
Makeup?
Being outdoors
A poem maybe
Some spontaneous photography…
If I’m being totally honest, these things feel very different from what’s going on in my life currently.
They feel aspirational.
I don’t know if I should go out of my way to create situations where I can share stuff like this? (That feels fake).
I can’t say why I chose these things specifically either…
I think I have a fundamental problem with revealing things about myself. I’ve spent most of my adulthood trying to be ‘palatable’, but no longer understand the payoff of doing this. There might not even be one??
At one point in my life I was really desperate to keep people around, and it made sharing parts of my story such a high stakes exercise. It was honestly terrible.
Today I realised that creating and sharing is a form of play. Play is very important, this is what my therapist from 2023 told me.
Why were the stakes ever so high?
I thought back to when I was a kid and I did used to play. It doesn’t mean you don’t put in a lot of effort or take it seriously.
What it meant back then is giving it your best, but really leaning into the fact the stakes are only high in the context of the game you are playing.
Outside of the playing, nothing matters.
Day 3 - 10/01/24 Even Play requires a Bit of Set up,
Play requires a bit of set up/work, but nothing too crazy. It’s important to not be tethered to a specific outcome; you figure out the route as you're taking it.
If anything I was tethered to a vague *feeling*, and I knew I wanted to basically surprise myself with whatever I created. I wanted to work towards something that was 1 level above what would normally be my “ceiling”.
This is the day I realised that “a bit of set up” probably means atleast choosing a medium.
It was a struggle, I still felt like I didn't have anything ready to share.
I didn’t know what I wanted to create either.
But I wanted to share something
This is the day that really tough feelings around needing to be seen and heard started bubbling up.
I feel like I only have 4 days to fix my brain and fix my whole life.
How did I lose my voice?
How do I gain it back?
I did some art therapy yesterday and drew myself hiding under a veil, the veil is what stood between me and the vibrancy of the world.
Day 4 - 11/01/2024 - Assume you can, and Figure out the “How” afterwards.
I have created and shared things before, but I didn’t think about them much once I was done.
But when I was trying to choose a medium, I thought about things I had already created and forgotten about.
Use what’s in front of you, use things you’ve already made, etc. is decent advice, and in this case allowed me to actually make a start on creating something.
Day 5 - 12/01/2024 don’t worry about what people might like
…because you don’t actually know what people like.
Your loyalty is to the story you’re trying to capture rather than other people.
You will always have a blind spot when creating and sharing something; not being able to experience your work the way other people will.
But I feel like that vulnerability adds sparkle to what people create. I actually think this is what attracts people to a works of art.
Day 6 - 13/01/2024 The Sharing Part
I made something, and then I shared it. Writing about this stuff actually worked in the end.
I was proud of the final product: it was an animated moodboard, with accompanying music made by me. The music was made from snippets in my voice memos app.
I think it told a story, and a consistent one.
There were other benefits aside from the final product:
It made me more willing to reveal things about myself to the public
I was better able to appreciate the things I create
I was able to apply the same principles to ordinary life: about play, how it’s serious but unserious, about using things around me and in front of me, aiming to create something never seen before, not being tethered to the specific outcome etc etc etc etc
Day 7, 14/01/2023 - maybe it was shit but that doesn’t matter.
I made something and shared it, someone might think it’s shit, but that’s honestly okay
I’ve gotten some positive feedback, not sure if people are trying to spare my feelings or if they understand the story I'm trying to tell.
I don’t think it matters too much either way.
Conclusion
Creating and sharing is a risk, but our loyalty is to the story you’re trying to tell rather than a specific type of approval.
It’s not a linear process, and that’s part of the fun. You figure it out as you go along.
Use what is around you, and give new life to work you’ve created and forgotten about.
Creating is a type of play, and the stakes are only high within the context of playing.
Someone might think it’s shit, but that risk and that vulnerability is an essential part of all of your favourite art.
If you made it this far thanks for reading, see you around.
No comments:
Post a Comment