if you’re reading these chronologically, you might have noticed I haven’t written anything in a few weeks. I’ve been feeling stuck. There’s really no other way to put it. I definitely try to reason and wrestle with this feeling. I can probably sit here and try to find its source, even chalk it up to a faux courageous stab at vulnerability. The truth is that I struggle with the notion of meaning.
I struggle with the paradox of freedom and creativity. I believe, that in order to create new things, one must live free. However, one must also be structured and disciplined in order to improve their skills and creative process. So how can one be freed by creativity AND dedicated to the creative act? Maybe using our freedom to choose to be disciplined is the answer, that’s actually what I’ve been trying to do. Perhaps the paradox is solved when we see routine as an opportunity to establish our own sense of freedom, but it is an uphill battle. Constantly convincing myself of what needs to be done while another part of me lists all the reasons my attempts at meaning are absurd and futile is not as fun as it sounds.
maybe is desire. Desire to please others, maybe even myself. The desire to be liked or even admired by peers and strangers, to be perceived as someone that didn’t waste all their potential on hypotheticals. This desire sometimes turns into fear sometimes and it paralyses the little momentum I’ve been building up. It keeps me in bed longer. Sometimes It keeps me away from my creative spaces. It convinces me that my efforts are not required today and perhaps they never will be.
all these mental gymnastics i do to procrastinate. To write them all down and read them all back is funny. Not haha funny. Sad funny.
I don’t really know what the point of this post is. I owe no one an explanation. Not because I’m some rebellious outlaw that doesn’t play by anyone’s rules, but because no one is asking me to do this, and most people don’t seem interested anyway.
so why do creatives do this to themselves? Why do bass players play until their fingers bleed? And Why do directors work until their families disown them? What the fuck are we even looking for? This shit sucks, the grind, the hustle as the kids would say. Im not gonna stop. Im gonna keep doing creative things, but I don’t really know why? It’s instinctive, subconscious and involuntary. It’s the same reason the birds fly south and the monarch migrates every year. I feel it, and yet I don’t know what it is.
and i will get there,
but I’ve been feeling stuck lately.
Adan 11/16/23