Creativity is a challenge.
In today's society, there are so many temptations that keep me from being creative. Watching hours of shows on Netflix. While those moments may give me inspiration from creativity, I am not acting on it. I am only consuming it. Which, don't get me wrong, is not a bad thing. However, when I consume the same shows, same series', same episodes over and over, it no longer becomes simply consuming one's product, but an addiction of the same product. Spending random moments reading articles online, tapping the screen of my smartphone, playing mobile games, wasting away in a device as big as my middle school scientific calculator. Pushing buttons. Over and over...over and over...over and over....
Which then defines me.
Addiction. If only I could be addicted to being creative daily.
I have been addicted to the drink. I have been addicted to cigarettes. I have been addicted to running (ironically while struggling with drink and cigarettes). I have been addicted to the TV, to spending, to coffee...
I need a new addiction. I need creativity to be my new addiction. Every day a new chapter in my book. A new story. A new song. Something I can show someplace in sometime.
Creativity is a challenge when you realize your own product never seems finished. Constantly editing, changing, not being satisfied. I have songs that I wrote when I was in high school that I try to fix and change. Rarely am I satisfied with the end product. While I satisfied that I have a product, in the end, it feels like an empty satisfaction.
Which leads to the addiction of wanting to be recognized. Which should never really be the goal of creativity. But it is a challenge of creativity: Do I create because I want to create? Do I create to gain some sort of external satisfaction (an award, a few bucks, a standing ovation, a Facebook like).
It's like those friends you have on social media that post selfies every single day.
DO they do it out of an internal satisfaction of taking a selfie, or do they post it to get the external gratification of a comment "You are so cute/handsome." Like. Like. Like.
I guess the book I am working on is my "selfie". Its what I want to promote. Both internally and externally. But there in lies the challenge of creativity: Finding the balance between the two.
Soon I will have edited the first three chapters of my book for the fourth time. Each time, lacking in satisfaction. Each time, making changes, some drastic, and others subtle. A never ending process that will eventually end....yet not end...in the end.
And that is the challenge of creativity.
