Not Alone

Those of you who read my twitter feed might already know that I struggle with creativity. Well, not creativity per say…more so I struggle with the undeveloped drive to create.

You see…I consider myself a very creative person. I don’t think I’m being narcissistic or delusional when I say that. I have this inborn sense…this feeling that my purpose, if you will allow me the indulgence, is to be an artist or expressionistic person in some form or another. But ever since I graduated from art school, ever since I left that safety and security of an environment in which your goals and needs and timelines were outlined for you…ever since then, I have been utterly and completely blocked from being able to accomplish anything that I feel warrants merit.

Sure, I have a plethora of ideas…ideas are no problem. But when it comes to actually implementing them in the real world, away from assignments and goals and grades and judges that I know personally…when it comes down to being me and only me that is the judge jury and executioner of my work, I falter. I’ve gone through years of whining, self-deprecating observations; of feeling like I’m a person who is meant for so much more, but simply can’t deliver because I’m a loser. And then, I saw a talk from Macworld given by Merlin Mann.

I stumbled across this post from Merlin through a completely unrelated topic on Webcomics.com, but the word “creativity” caught my eye so I clicked on it. I’ll warn you – the presentation I’ve embedded below isn’t very smooth as far as presentations go…Merlin’s slide deck has its formatting all messed up when he has technical difficulties, and it sounds like his jokes are bombing throughout the whole thing because you can’t hear the audience laughing. But I gave it a chance, and suddenly I glommed onto what it was he was saying – and I started to cry.

It was as if Merlin was describing in intimate detail exactly how I had felt for the past five years: feeling creative, yet having no way to output my creativity…feeling that everyone else was handed a manual that shows them how to do well in life, and mine was lost in the mail. I kept thinking: “That’s ME! He’s talking about me…us, him, me! I’m not the only one who feels completely lost here!”

This was the part that really got me, and maybe, I hope, might speak to some of you as well:

…I think part of what bogs people down in wanting to become more creative is feeling some disconnect between this part of them that they know wants to do something, and the person that they know they want to be, and then getting hung up in the implementation details. Does that make any sense? And you find yourself casting about for all these magic tricks that are gonna let you make this cognitive leap to where a beret falls out of the sky and suddenly you know how to paint.

So we’re all looking for these little tricks to make us feel more creative. And what I started to realize was all these people whom I admire, who are able to do this…all these people seem to have certain amounts of shared DNA about how they think about the process of making things. They don’t go to Barnes & Noble and buy books about how to generate ideas on a whiteboard. They don’t buy books about lateral thinking. There’s nothing wrong with any of these things, but the truth is when you become a professional creative person, having ideas is the least of your problems…ideas are cheap. Making them into something awesome is super hard.

Here is the whole presentation for your benefit:

The part about “magic tricks” was especially poignant to me. Over the past few years, I’ve noticed a pattern…I’ll think “if only I had a drafting desk, then I’ll have the tools to be a real artist!” So I go out and get one, and six months later it sits unused and dusty in the corner of my “studio.” I’ll get this feeling that I need to go to an art store and pick up materials…even if I never use them, I collect materials. Pens, India ink, vellum, paint, exotic papers, anything and everything…it all feels necessary somehow, as if finding the right tools or medium will suddenly unlock that special place in my brain and all of the art will spill out, like a dam releasing water, and I’ll suddenly “get it.”

In the years after school, I used to wander into Barnes & Noble on Chestnut street up the block from the University, and peruse the shelves. I would look at inspirational books, books on creativity, books on everything…thinking that if I could just find the right book, maybe it too would unlock that corner of my brain that was holding me back. I found some good books too…The Artist’s Way, The Lost Soul Companion, What Should I Do With My Life?, Quarterlife Crisis, etc. All of them were inspiring and gave me insight, but none of them gave me the key.

Even now, every once in awhile I’ll catch myself thinking “if only I had a Cintiq, then I could be the artist I want to be.” And I mentally smack myself, because I know I’m wrong. A real artist will find a way to create using sticks and stones and a $1 disposable camera if need be…a real artist doesn’t need tools. They need…whatever it was that I didn’t have.

Then Mr. Mann comes along, and proves that I’m not the only one who feels this embarrasing and ultimately harmful disconnect between the creation of the idea, and the creation of the actual work. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that Merlin has “the answer,” or that there even is one…yet. But at least I don’t feel quite so alone. And maybe I have a couple of things that I can work on, perhaps even with other people who feel the same way.