Finding your own reason again

I’ve spent too long looking for ways to kill my creativity

I stare at the blank monitor. Just me and the words that I type. “You’ve always been able to do this, why can’t you do it daily?” It’s difficult to let the flow move from my mind to my fingers. I’m always thinking of possible corrections to make. Always thinking ahead. Thinking of what others will think. Thinking this is just going to be a monologue. Why bother doing anything?

But… does it matter that much what everyone else will wonder? Just type the words! And if nobody reads, it might be even better. That means you don’t have to worry so much about it being not perfect.

I’m always thinking of what I should be writing. And, most of the time, I think I don’t have that much to talk about. Then I remember I’m constantly dealing with development and creativity, so there must be something to talk about. And OK, I’ll stop with the self criticizing. You probably can relate with what I’m doing so far. Sometimes we feel stuck. That’s OK. But just like Sam Smith, we have to know we’re not the only one.

I’m currently at a limbo where I have good to impressive skills in some creative areas. (definitely not my art skills.) But I’m far from an expert in any of them. As we all know, this is not good at all. So I surf the web looking for ways to improve myself.

My search has led me to essays, reviews and interviews on the works of Steve Pressfield. He wrote about how we should live as a creative person. If an artist produces higher quality work than others, it’s probably because they’re a “pro”. Of course this seems obvious and we might even wonder why people buy his book. We want the magic juice, the secret ingredient that turns us into our idols. And Pressfield basically delivers to us.

That also seems obvious, perhaps not so much if you don’t know the etymology of the word “amateur”. It means someone who loves. What does Pressfield mean by that, then? He argues that amateurs don’t actually love their craft because they keep waiting. They wait for inspiration, wait for the moment to feel right, wait for the muse. And if it never comes, they never do it. Professionals, on the other hand, don’t wait for inspiration because they know it’s gonna come once they start.

I know you probably have read some other text on Medium talking about Pressfield, so I’ll tell a personal one. I remember the reason why I moved away from being a musician when I was 18. At that point I was making music since 14, and my friends genuinely loved what I was doing. (really, if the music sucked, they’d just say it sucked.) Maybe it was “talent”. I loved composing music, discovering music, playing my guitar. Just as Pressfield described, I refused to wait for inspiration to come, I had to just compose something. Looking back, there are hundreds of unfinished material, but on the other side, dozens of good finished ones. One of the greatest feelings of my teenage years what my first visit to a recording studio. I just wanted to live there. But the feeling kind of got lost somewhere along the way. Suddenly I was afraid I would end up hating work with music if others told me what to do. Music was meant to make me feel free. I thought that magic of discovery would keep going on as an amateur, a hobbyist. I wish I’d read one of Pressfield’s books back then.

Professional is not only a definition for someone that makes money out of their craft. Professionals just do things. They have a system, a routine, and they respect it. That’s what I needed to know back in the day. I also needed to know that the feeling of something new would eventually fade. That being trapped in a work you don’t love is much worse than being told how to do the work you love. And because of that, I’d end up not being as excited as I once was. I needed to use all of my younger strength to grab those creative opportunities. That’s an advice I would give if you want to be creative: Truly love what you do? Try doing it, and finishing it, every day. If you don’t feel like you need anything else, just run after it.

I was getting used to say that my creativity and excitement for music were already dead. I used to dive in five hours straight making music. (as a teen, I couldn’t use my computer that much.) I wouldn’t pause for water or bathroom. Every time I was away from the computer, I was thinking of new ideas for riffs and melodies. I thought that was gone. But last night I spent three hours experimenting with sounds on my computer. The feeling is not dead, I was the one looking for reasons to kill it.

I don’t think we should be afraid of being creative. Or be afraid of making money out of our creative work. Or afraid of thinking we’ll lose the feeling and the excitement for the art. If that love is true, if the immersion is real, if time flies while you’re at it, you can be sure it’ll keep flying when you get older. I know I’m still not there, but this is what I believe to be true. And this is what I will do every single day.

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