For those who have known me since past 10 years or so have seen me producing different kinds of written content, some average, some stupid but sometimes brilliant and worth connecting too. And it's not just about writing blogs, stories or poems. I had written satires, I tried my hand in writing Hindi content, I recited poems, created spoofs and then created my own songs, comics and various other stuffs.
But in past 5 years I have found myself going through long patches of being away from doing something for me. It has been mostly "work" or family obligation. You get good in what you do, I have grown in confidence as a professional worker and also in handling family responsibilities. Past 5 years or so have also seen me becoming more and more of a passive consumer of content than an active creator or contributor.
While there are always ups and downs in life and I have faced a lot of personally difficult moments, but in terms of expectations and the flow of the day, the life has become monotonous. And that suffocates you, because life is not just about living in luxury or pleasure. Life is about struggle and triumphs. And you won't experience that struggle and triumph if you don't even try. If you don't come out of your comfort zone, that comfort zone will keep getting smaller until it crushes you inside.
So, while I concentrated on getting my personal life in order, this creative person in me has died a slow death. This has led to me doubting myself that if I can ever achieve that type of consistency, variety or quality in my writing. Life is different from how it was 5 years ago, I have become older (probably more mature too), with more family obligations (being married) and less free or personal time to indulge in creativity.
There are some of my friends who will keep marching forward no matter their state of life. They will photograph or sing or dance or paint, no matter what the occasion. It's what they live for. Beside being jealous, I also have immense respect for consistent content creators. Because when I don't consistently do a little bit of that in my own life then I feel I am falling behind in life.
On the other hand, I have seen so many of my ultra creative friends becoming high earning, high class workers. in their case, I have tried to encourage them hoping to revive the creativity in them. Kind of like you giving a CPR to a person on the verge of dying. And that's what I believe in. If the creativity has been sucked out of you, you are more or less dead from inside. If all you do is spec work, working 40-50 hours a week while waiting for weekends, then all you are waiting for is death to arrive.
Being Creative doesn't mean you must be having a lot of followers or must produce viral content day in day out. Creativity for me, is just creating something out of nothing, with no knowledge of whether your creation will work or not. Creativity is all about trying and expressing yourself. It's acceptable to me even if it's 'mediocre' by some random standard, as long as you created it without any spec or obligation.
Creativity is a reward of its own. When I write, even if it's shit, I feel good because I can then consider myself different from so many of my peers who are good in their profession but that's all that they know of. On the other hand, when I go for a sufficiently long time without creating anything in any form, I start feeling anxious of losing my time on this earth.
I believe you get to live only once, and what you create as your own in the form of an entertainment, information or connection is going to be your legacy. This blog, if it remains online will become a part of my body of work. Probably someone will visit it someday and go through my old posts to gauge into my thinking and emotions at that time. May be they will be able to connect to what I write because they felt something similar. It's a fantasy alright but it's worth pursuing.
So, if you are reading this, I would again plead you to find sometime out of your daily life and do something of your own. It can be anything. It can be even related to your profession as long as you do it out of your own will and not for some other person and company. Just create something and if you feel like then share it with the world. Heck, share it with me! And then do it again the next day.
Be Creative. Or Die.
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