Losing joy: when creativity becomes obligation
One of the things I have wanted to share about for a few years now, is how going to a creative study basically deleted all my joy and passion with creativity.
I can make a really long post about this, maybe even multiple, for now I just want to share a few things about it.
I went to study graphic design and was really excited to learn more ways to express my creativity. But looking back, I only learned how I should use my talent to copy and combine to the liking of the teacher, client and ‘market’. It didn’t teach me to embrace my unique creativity and didn’t hone my actual talents.
I was so focused to just get the diploma and please the teachers and clients, that I’ve lost my joy creating anything. And this is mostly with my drawing, painting, digital work, collages and basically kind of childlike creativity.
At least in those years I had my writing.
In these years of graphic design study, I started a blog. It wasn’t my first, but I was learning to do some coding and make my own little space on the big wide web. I found lots of other blogs, and it all started light and fun. But I started to see changes in lots of blogs. Their writing style changed, topics and layouts.
Young and naive as I was, I thought they were just growing as writers and creatives. And they all showed me some kind of template. I tried to copy and combine so that I got the template but it was definitely my own. But it was not.
I got so extremely serious about creating ‘professional looking’ content, that I started to try everything.
The love I had for writing, photography and in general doing research and sharing my thoughts, became very complicated and felt like I was doing heavy lifting. It was just not fun anymore.
And so, I stopped writing, stopped doing anything creative. Started just watching lots of shows and movies. Felt all the feels, couldn’t express them anywhere, not even in a journal. I got stuck, I got burned out, I got depressed.
Now I’m 33 yo and have tried so many things to get my creativity back. Have accomplished in certain seasons getting it back, and then becoming burned out again. And depressed.
Now I finally think I have a better understanding why it’s hard. But I also want to explore it on this blog.
Currently, I think a big problem is the difficulty to slow down for a creative project. My brain is addicted to the fast paced dopamine from the shows, movies, social media etc. And the reason why I haven’t succeeded to combat this problem with long term success, is because I thought I could have it all. Being creative and being addicted to the things mentioned.
My brain is autistic, and so this is just my logic, there is just no in between. Through the years I’ve been feeling deep anger towards social media and all those entertainment. And have ‘successfully’ detoxed goals; days, weeks, months.
And coming back was always so much fun! And I always thought, it’s not that bad. But then the ick slowly builds up again and I can’t figure it out for a while. Until I’m so sick and tired again that I become angry, and I detox again.
And so the cycle continues.
But I aim to do a deep dive and learn to find my personal crux of this problem. To think about what my aim is if I would use social media. Or, my life long dream to just be..
Off grid.
Fallen from the earth?
#creativity #thoughts