Do You Feel the Creative Call? Make Room in Your Life to Create.
Without an outlet, creative energy can curdle.
Creative people need to create. When they are not able to do so, there are consequences. They may be very mild, but they are there, pulsing in the background.
Last weekend I had every intention of writing each day. It was mapped out, we were good to go. I didn’t count on a few things.
Friday my two cats, Xander and Anya, had their annual dental cleaning. Wrangling cats for a vet visit is no one’s idea of fun.
Xander came home with three fewer teeth and strong pain medication. I was cautioned not to tell my neighbors we had a form of morphine in the house.
I know it was said in a joking manner but is this what the world is now? The opioid crisis is so rampant I need to keep my housecat’s medication on an as-needed basis?
Xander is not tiny. How can people be desperate for a fifteen-pound cat’s medication? I didn’t argue with them. They were probably right.
The drama changed fundamental patterns of behavior in our house.
The problem in our house that weekend had nothing to do with any Great Opioid Robbery. Anya didn’t approve of Xander’s scent. The working theory is that the medication caused him to smell differently.
The whole thing was very dramatic. Much hissing and growling on one side, a confused, normally alpha male cat on the other. Anya spent a lot of time in my closet, spreading her fur all over the bottom of my clothes.
Xander spent the weekend confused by Anya’s reaction but not unduly disturbed. For the most part, he lay in my lap or on the rug nearby.
I recognized the look in his eye. He had the stoned, sleepy look I associate with Percocet.
Every morning I would awake, intending to grab a cup of coffee and head to the laptop.
The drama changed fundamental patterns of behavior in our house. It isn’t clear exactly why. One cat stoned and curled up on the carpet while another hid in a closet shouldn’t have disrupted things.
Every morning I would awake, intending to grab a cup of coffee and head to the laptop. Every morning, as I tried to settle down, Xander was by my feet, wanting attention. I gave it.
He is five years old and this is the third dental cleaning that has resulted in teeth being pulled. Chronic gum disease is taking a toll and there seems to be little enough that can be done.
Brushing a cat’s teeth is a lot of fun. Why didn’t I want pet fish again? Oh yeah. You can’t really pet a Beta.
The other piece of the puzzle was worry over Anya. She didn’t seem to be coming out to eat or drink. We would take turns checking on her.
My husband gave up on trying to read or nap or whatever it is he does in his home office on the weekend. He stayed in the family room, where I sat with Xander. I was trying to write on my laptop, but Netflix lured me away.
Artists should create.
This went on the entire three-day weekend. We snuck out to catch a film on Monday. Xander was doing well, Anya was in the closet, and we decided to risk it.
I’m not sure what we expected to happen. After watching “Where’d You Go, Bernadette?” we returned to find everything status quo. I admit it: I thought about the film’s message as I binged Netflix with a stoned cat and my husband.
The film tells the story of a brilliant architect who stopped creating for over a decade. It had a detrimental effect on her psyche.
Artists should create. When they do, they can funnel their obsessions and energy into their particular art. When they don’t, their obsessions and energy can fester.
A study from 2018 modeled creative thinking in the brain.
Scientists identified a neural network full of connections between areas that often work against each other.
Across four independent datasets, we show that a person’s capacity to generate original ideas can be reliably predicted from the strength of functional connectivity within this network, indicating that creative thinking ability is characterized by a distinct brain connectivity profile. Robust prediction of individual creative ability from brain functional connectivity
Scientists can now see the creative centers in our brains making connections as original ways of problem-solving are tracked. During the study, they asked participants to come up with creative uses for everyday objects.
They ranked the ideas based on the originality of the idea. Originality was measured by the uncommon use for the items.
We also ranked their ideas for originality: Common uses received lower scores (using a sock to warm your feet), while uncommon uses received higher scores (using a sock as a water filtration system). New study reveals why some people are more creative than others
The researchers measured the blood flow to the various parts of the brain, through fMRI scans. People in the study who were scored as more creative consistently had more creative hobbies or accomplishments.
Perhaps it is this extra activity in the creative brain that causes negative internal feelings when artists, scientists, and other original thinkers aren’t able to create. The urge to create is a compulsion.
Creative people unable to carve time out to create suffer negative consequences.
Creatives themselves know that they must find a way to work or there is resultant situational depression, frustration, sometimes actual confusion when dealing with the endless grind of daily tasks. The daily tasks can be a day job, housework, even normally fun things like hanging with your kids or going out with your friends.
For some people it’s a few days without creating, for some, weeks or months. But we have all felt that feeling of malaise, that lack of purpose and deficit of motivation, the cycle of procrastination and guilt. Our goals and visions of our artwork run endlessly through our minds, we desperately want to progress past whatever is blocking us but we consistently choose not to, to our own great frustration! Why Artists Get Depressed When They Don’t Work
It was an itch under the skin.
I write. I also work with ceramics, mosaics, glass fusion and create quilts by hand. I am creative. I am familiar with the malaise.
My ceramics classes took a month-long break in August. My hand quilting caused temporary tennis elbow during the same time frame. For this and various other reasons, my creative energies have been focused on my writing.
When I was unable to find time to write this weekend, I missed it. That is too mild a description.
It was an itch under the skin. I have never been a smoker but the best comparison feels like the compulsion for cigarettes.
Imagine you reach for a package of cigarettes and realize you are in a non-smoking building. You can’t leave the meeting so you leave the pack in your pocket or purse. Then you do this over and over for three days.
That was my weekend without the nicotine addiction and with cats. I know this is a terrible comparison. The nicotine takes that addiction to a different level, but you get the idea.
I spent a couple of years of not writing. My life was full of many unwelcome things and the stress made self-care mandatory. In my discomfort and with a busy schedule, writing drifted away.
It was a mistake. My self-care would have been enhanced by writing. Even bad writing helps. Getting words on the page helps.
It would have helped during the time I had a job I was unhappy in. It would have helped when I was shattered from the death of a marriage. If I had only worked on my writing or quilting or anything that was a creative outlet, my brain may have quieted.
My obsessions and energy became tied up in worrying about all the unwelcome things in my life. The changes I didn’t want, the future I tried to chart in my mind. I hope to never go back to those days.
Creatives, it is obvious to me, need to make space for their work.
Luckily the last dose of Xander’s medication was on Monday. By Tuesday we began getting back on our schedule.
My ceramics classes restarted and my husband’s job called. Anya stopped looking at Xander as if he were a dangerous stranger and things got back to normal.
Tuesday was a no writing day as well. Getting back to normal patterns wasn’t as quick as we imagined. Wednesday I wrote.
I am in no danger of becoming anti-social like the main character in the film, but it was still uncomfortable not to write. I imagine all creatives feel different versions of this.
Creatives, it is obvious to me, need to make space for their work. What has also become obvious is the need to have back up plans when the normal space is not available.
Do we stay up late in the night, creating as our family members sleep? Do we set our alarms and wake early to give ourselves time?
Some of that depends on the individual. I am no morning person. To try and be creative at 5 AM won’t happen.
Staying awake and being creative at 1 AM is much more likely.
One thing is clear: the answer should never be to skip creating.
You may like this:
