Why you need to make time to create (anything)
Consumption. Consuming food, air, space, and information have all become equally second-nature for me and it has me highly concerned.
This is confusing. It’s confusing because, like too many things in life, it’s a complete paradox. On the one hand, I know and believe I still have a lot to learn. And that’s what I try and do, for most of my waking hours: I study engineering full-time, I have committed to making parenting my 2-year old into a personal learning experience, and every free second above and beyond this, I spend seeking out more information to read and process in the name of “learning”.
So why, then, does my current ways bother me so much? It bothers me because the further I go, the further I get from the person I originally intended to be when I first set out to gain knowledge. When I started my pursuit of becoming a professional engineer, I wanted to make a meaningful impact on as many people and/or the natural environment and/or wildlife as possible. I always believed the way to this was developing the ability to solve problems as complex as the people/environments/wildlife I wanted to positively impact. So… as I write this, I am taking a moment to reflect on whether I still believe this and yes, I still do. Now, I worry, the problem-solver I wanted and want to develop is being eaten away by a consumption monster. The consumption monster is a passive creature. It encourages me to be comfortable. It encourages me to be a bystander to what I consume. Sometimes it even encourages me to be a bystander to my own life.
I remember being told some strange things during my time at high school. But higher up on the list of strange was when one of my best friends proclaimed:
“You’re a main character in your life, that’s why you don’t understand!”
*Cue your baffled expression, much like mine in that moment*
No, really, she said that. I had apparently been too busy being a “main character” to even realise it. The theory, according to her definition, was that being a main character in your own life means that you take action. You don’t feel like a spectator in your own life. Rather, in every moment of your life, whether it seems significant or not, you are proactive about doing you, so to say. You’re not just existing. Rather, you’re crafting your life deliberately.
So this “main character” notion is rather lovely. Eventually I could realise that it was, in fact, a compliment to be deemed a “main character” in my own life.
Fast forward to today and I’m unsure whether I am still a “main character”. I believe that has a lot to do with the presence of the consumption monster in my life. This monster is sneaky. He feeds on your creative abilities, while also depositing consumption cells into your bloodstream.
I think we both know that there is no consumption monster. But fighting an imaginary monster works for me and so if it works for you to, we’ll continue with the metaphor.
Now that the monster and his true impact has been identified, what happens next? How do we keep this “consumption” monster at bay? I suppose it must start with making the time and effort to be creative.
Okay… but where to begin? Personally, my first step was writing this article. Going forward, it’s tempting to just add some vague task like “write 30 minutes everyday” to my to-do list. If you’re anything like me though, seeing vague, open-ended tasks like that in your inbox can cause your mind to go haywire. This can lead to one of two things: a continuous postponement of the task to “tomorrow” (that never comes), or to the permanent deletion of the task.
How do you go about forcing creativity? You can’t, right?
Let’s start right at the beginning. After a certain amount of time of existing, most of us have found at least one art form that we enjoy engaging in. For example:
· lyric writing
· melody making
· playing self-composed tunes on an instrument
· doodling
· painting
· writing
· crafting new recipes in the kitchen
· photography
· …
It’s quite amazing, trying to think about all the ways you can spend your time engaging in some form of art. It certainly is when you’ve spent the past 1+ year calculating yield stresses and analysing planar kinetics of rigid bodies. It’s freeing. Don’t get me wrong, I have found a surprising amount of joy in the technical analysis of real life, “concrete” things (hehe). I am glad I decided to do this civil engineering thing. But it breaks my heart seeing how little time I make to be creative. Life is too precious to be lived in any one dimension. Art takes the notion of dimensions itself and breathes astonishing beauty into it.
Now that we’ve thought about all the different art forms, I hope at least one in particular brought a smile to your face. Now that it has, let it simmer in your mind a bit. When was the last time you engaged in it? How did you feel? What sounds surrounded you as you were making your art? Were you feeling at one with your environment, or so focused on your craft that everything else seemed to fall away?
I hope those memories brought you joy. I hope they weren’t recalled from so long ago that the details have become fuzzy. If so, I urge you to pick up a pen, or a spoon, or a paintbrush. Or use your voice. Use whatever to create something. Anything.
