The Sad Reality Of Being Creative

Doggo, or perhaps the demon creature from "Ghostbusters", made by my daughter.

Being creative is important at any age. I honestly didn't think of it's importance to me until I listened to Jewel on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Writing was an outlet for her during her darkest days and after listening to her story I realized just how much writing, making art, and making music has helped me.

I don't know where I would be if I didn't have outlets of creativity to keep my brain going on track. In my worst days there is always something to create. Creativity keeps me alive.

Shrimp people. Who says I'm not good with modeling compound? 😂

It doesn't matter how big or small the object I make, every trickle of output keeps my thoughts distracted from the circumstances and pains that would drag me into the abyss. Maybe it's not so much a distraction as it is a better channel for my mental energy.

Something that has always fascinated me is the fact that some creatives leave entire estates worth of creations to museums. The volume of memoirs, doodles, snippets of stories, demo tapes, or other such goodies left behind demonstrates that the general public only gets to see a fraction of someone's output during their lifetime. A prolific artist has so much more that we don't see.

And sadly, so much of their product is born out of pain. Most of what we don't see is likely what is too personal to share. Or possibly something they don't think is good enough, even though the rest of the world would fall madly in love with it.

Oddly enough, I don't typically fall into that trap. I try to share everything, good, bad, and ugly. If it's good, compliment me. If it's bad, be kind, but do critique. And if you can tell I'm in pain, offer a kind word.