I haven’t sat down and written a full blog post in quite a while now. Is it coming up on a year? I’m not sure.
It’s a bit sad for me, as someone to whom writing was such a core part of my skill set and took up a good amount of my time and efforts. But life has been going at 110 miles an hour for a few years now. Working at start-ups, dealing with layoffs, growing in a serious romantic relationship, moving, traveling, and going through life with friends who have their own ups and downs. Any free time that I have I usually put towards calling friends and family members, or doing something for my physical health.
Even between that last paragraph and now, there was a several-day gap despite my determination to sit down and finish this, and there will likely be another due to the nature of my day today.
How has this lack of creative output effected me?
Let’s talk about it.
- I feel my desire to learn has decreased. As life gets busier, I spend more and more mental energy on my troubles and the troubles of those around me. I barely keep my head above water sometimes. My brain has little time to ponder new information or even seek out new information.
- I’ve lost my creative and creating mindset, specifically when it comes to stories but also other areas of my life. I found a YouTube channel recently thanks to a friend called “The Critical Drinker”. I’m sure many would find him controversial and crude, because he is, but I’ve realized, or rather, remembered, something while watching him. I love stories. I love telling stories. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had people in stitches with my real-life escapades, but those were things that actually happened to me. The only creative juice that requires is figuring out what details to include, leave out, exaggerate, minimize, and how to deliver the punchline. Hearing “The Drinker” as they call him go on about continuity, exploring ideas, likable characters, building tensions, and satisfying endings reminded me of the world of creation I used to be in nearly every day. My head used to be spinning with ideas and now I struggle to come up with a simple blog post idea.
- Just ship it? I haven’t shipped anything in a while. My last consist and big-title job at a start-up let me wear many hats, as I like to, and I put myself in charge of writing blogs posts. But that was nearly a year ago now. I haven’t put out a podcast episode in ages, my last blog post on this website might have been earlier this year? Last year? I don’t remember and I’m not looking right now. Every time I have an idea for a blog post, I write some of it and then decide to come back to it later. Then, maybe I come back to it or maybe I don’t. Either way, it doesn’t get posted again. I’m not even going to proofread this blog post before I publish it. There will be grammatical errors. In fact, I hope there are. It’ll be evidence I kept to my word and just put something out there.
I hope with this blog post, I can start a new era of my life, one where I output more content and take in content more meaningful than the latest show on Apple TV or the most recent Cody Ko video (love that guy). Or perhaps you can look at it as restarting or re-entering a part of my life I was in previously and then left. Either way, my self-discipline needs to be exercised again and this is a great way to do that.
I encourage you to do the same if you’ve found yourself in a similar rut. Maybe you don’t have a website, or a YouTube channel, or a podcast, but you probably have an Instagram. Or a Twitter (sorry, I mean X). A notebook at home to write a poem on to share with a friend or family member? Just do something to push yourself mentally.
Alright now I’m off to visit Unsplash for the first time in forever, and remember how to log into the admin account on my own website. See you soon.