Well, it finally happened. It looks like I bottomed out on my creative endeavors.
I had a feeling that this would happen eventually. But it’s been well over a month since my last podcast episode, and probably two or three months (edit: only one!) since the last time I updated this blog. I know through years of therapy that I probably shouldn’t shame myself for doing that, as it’s not particularly helpful or fruitful. But still. There is certainly a part of me that feels as though I’m some sort of moral reprobate, or at least a garden variety failure.
But enough about wallowing in self flagellation and self pity. What do I do about it? There’s a lot of different schools of thought, and in the past I probably would have turned to self-help books about time management, arguing that a lack of free time is what is to blame for not making headway on my creative endeavors.
But nowadays, I don’t think that this is true at all. Honestly, even on days when I have ample amounts of free time, I have a neverending capacity to refresh email inboxes, check social media, and do a lot of sweet-eff-all when I could be writing, or doing other creative work. Twitter has been a recent time sink for me. No, if I was going to do self help work at this point, I’m really more interested in the science of motivation. I read a little bit of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of “flow,” and that’s of course a very trendy and neat one to think about. But there are certainly rare fleeting moments where I get so lost in practicing the piano, that I lose track of time and I just truly absorb myself in the moment. It’s fleeting, almost like a dream state. And as soon as I draw myself consciously to notice that I’m in this flow state, it instantly disappears. It’s like how you can start lucid dreaming when you realize that you’re in a dream, but as soon as you realize you’re in that dream state, everything begins to crumble apart.
But flow isn’t the same as motivation. How do I get excited about my creative projects? How do I find the burning passion to set aside the easy creature comforts, and dig deep to the more long term, high end satisfying goals? And of course, how do I know what my goals actually are? Maybe I’m deluding myself by thinking that I want to improve my chess, compose music, and putting in a lot of hard work on my podcast. But if not those endeavors, then what? It’s certainly never been a career focus, and it certainly isn’t that now. But I’d like to think that my ambitions run higher then obsessing over social media, and spamming games on my phone. But even in the way I phrased that, I can’t help but notice a certain level of self shaming, and questioning my own self worth. And around and around in circles we go again.
I don’t know if anybody actually reads this blog, or if I’m just throwing pencils into a void. However, if anyone does read this or follow this, and has any suggestions on books about motivation, either from a scientific or philosophical standpoint (I don’t really care which) I would love to hear about them.
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