Lost voices: Losing our creativity to reclaiming our craft.

I’ve been meaning to write something new about what we’ve been doing for so long but so long got in the way of doing so. I’ve been writing about other things that will probably never be shared, that or jumping online briefly to write something fleeting, only to then jump back off and lose myself in the days. The problem with living like this, lost in days with halfway points, uncertainties, things being set at half mast, discarded blog entries and stories only half told is that it creates too many boxes. I tried telling myself that it’s summer and while the weather is kind, other things can wait. I read articles from my favourite SubStacks, saw news updates about everything that’s been going on, watched videos of people telling their everyday lives and took many road trips with J while juggling our everyday with the out of the ordinary. The one thing I neglected throughout all of this was how I was feeling. It was only after we drove out yesterday, came home, did everything else and then went out to ride that we began to talk. It turned out that we both felt the same. That life had been too frantic with too many things happening at once. That we’d both lost our creative focus and fallen into a cycle of work, workout, sleep and repeat. 

In the summer, it becomes more difficult to write or for J to work on his art. As I started to write this from a note on my phone today, a Tesla alarm began belting out somewhere behind me and someone just left their tractor running beside me.

At home, it’s an agricultural show of who can shout the loudest. The garden wars of mowing, strimming, banging, barking. The garden fires that burn, cackle and glow long into the night. J went to speak with a neighbour who had been penning their dogs with separation anxiety in a chicken coop every day for two months straight. Thankfully, she was reasonable.  Then, there's the crowds. J said this morning that we both have sea-longing like Tolkien elves. We’ve not been to the beach in weeks, just a glimpse of the sea sets an instant calm. The beaches are home but in the summer they are distant. Transformed into crowd-pleasing sites for towels and sandcastles, the beaches of summer are very different to the melancholic emptiness of winter. The grey mist, hail, and ice-cold wind whiplashing across one cheek. Those are the coastlines that we call home that right now feel very distant.

It's not only lost coastlines. I had begun to feel distant from myself, only the nights told my truth. Fraught wakenings, laced with anxiety and although not so much sadness right now, an unexplained urge to find something that was missing. I've been waking like this for a little while. Fantasising about the idea of returning to the structure of uni; early morning tea drinking while reading papers and writing notes, quickly replaced with the reality of that deadline-orientated lifestyle we had once lived. Now things are calmer and more free. Neither of us want the commitment of long weekends at the table. But still, despite a much clearer lifestyle, fewer deadlines (much welcomed) and so many hobbies to fill our time, something still felt to be missing. This is why I wanted to write a little to see if I could access myself again in this way. But as I sat down to do so I became angry. A few old ghouls had thrown themselves along for the ride in the form of overwhelmed family members becoming fraught and putting me back into the old school box as being the problem. My inbox sitting with questions from old friends and family members that I was unable to reply to as they were not my questions to answer. There had been some niggling and arguments with some of my closest loved ones, not over any one thing specifically but over everything happening at once and not having enough time to sit and listen to each other. Life had been very busy and in this, I'd become the mediator, the emotional support for others, at times the gatekeeper and on occasion the placater.

Summer had become overwhelm not only for me and J, but going by the rage we have seen elsewhere it would seem that the sun sets the darkest souls alight. It would seem that summer has become Halloween without the costume. Hidden beneath bright blue skies and warm rays, were a collection of enraged souls burning up and losing themselves to wants, to identities, to social conformity and to wider pressures. If I'm honest, my own pressure is perhaps living with my own and others' anxieties while trying to keep my mind clear in this overcrowded summer. Often the great pretender until the words come out a little wrong or a little too angry, yet if I miss the meaning of a message then it’s here that I find myself a little more real. Emotions are really powerful, aren't they? I didn’t want to write this post with anger. It was supposed to be beautiful, talking about life. But life is anger too. It’s ok to be overwhelmed by running on too much smoke from the neighbour's garden. Losing your voice though, I find that problematic. 

As I lost my creativity...

There’s a lot to be said for privacy and boundaries, but when it reaches the point where you stop talking to yourself that’s when you become hollow and existent. Each and every one of us can fall into the trap of running like this. It’s not all to do with the world. When we went out on that ride the other day, it was probably the first time we had spoken about our yearning for creativity and how we both felt we had lost it. J felt like his art had become pointless as he had been trapped in a cycle of painting puffins because that's what sells in Pembrokeshire. I hadn’t shared a blog in a long time because I felt that everything I wrote was boring and pointless, even when it spoke loudly to me. Even as I began writing this blog, I began to think who is really going to want to read this, that it's pointless, nobody is interested in someone else's rut. We all know that there is truth in that statement. As writers, we are taught to write for audiences and not ourselves. This is where the problem lies. We don't speak to ourselves enough.

There’s this bench that does its thing out on a rural roadside not far from home. It's in the middle of nowhere and there are no paths to it. It just exists. That state of existence felt like the place we had both reached together. With too many things started and then put on hold, we had been unable to enjoy life fully. In recent weeks the roads had become heavy and the rides repetitive, same lanes different day. The local A-roads are currently heaving with tourists rushing and racing to get to the coast. At least our rural haunts were quiet and free from that.

As the sun sat heavily on our shoulders, we sat heavily in discussion out on that quiet bench with our bikes, realising that there were three things going on here. The first being our state of existence, the second, losing our voices through a lack of creativity in our lives, and the third, not being able to find escape.

Escape...

Finding escape isn't just a problem associated with crowds - while that is a large part of it, it is also about where we are at without our creativity. Heading off on the road can only bring escape for so long before the road runs out and we return home with little other than an empty water bottle and a couple of empty photos. Our rut had carried us into this place. I was taking the photos but showing them, writing the words but not sharing them. And in life, people tell us that’s brilliant, well done you, just keep everything to yourself. So we do. Right now it would seem that the internet of a few years ago is dying its death. The disengagement is real for us all. But sometimes that feeling of sharing something can bring a sense of calm even when it has no audience. Often, it doesn’t need one.

I don’t have a counsellor to talk to these days. Long gone are the fortnightly sessions where I would be able to get things off my mind. I would not find another counsellor like the one I once had, and it would be difficult to share on such a level of intimacy these days. You might agree when I say this, sharing is often easier when we don’t know who we are talking to. I think that this is a part of the problem, creativity is where our deepest selves exist and if we begin to tell ourselves that there is no point in sharing what we’ve created, then this is where we begin to close ourselves off. If you find yourself here, I would say, don’t stop writing or doing whatever brings you that release in your life. You can have a life filled with friends and events and things, but your creativity is you at your rawest. You don’t have to be proud about putting that away. Sometimes it’s the only way out of this place, the only way to think. 

As we moved on from the bench to head home, J told me that he was going to attempt some new drawings. We’ve recently been going through a Tolkien phase which is one of his deepest inspirations. He has Smaug tattooed across his arm. It’s beautiful. I don’t know whether you’ve seen any of J’s art but honestly, he is one of many artists out there who are gravely underrated. He doesn’t see himself in that way - as an artist. After I gifted him some Derwent Inktense for Christmas last year he had some incredible plans, but akin to my writing, this aspect of him had become lost in the days and the box still sits on a shelf waiting to be opened.

As we rode home we both made a promise to ourselves that we would not continue to lose ourselves in this way. That life may be frantic and busy and filled with emotions, both good and bad. But wellbeing comes from within as much as it exists for us out on the road. As I once wrote, escape is our greatest protection.

Two days later we got up to run the day on a sleepless night. Neither of us had been sleeping well of late. Usually, the weeks play out with the promise of escape at the end of them, be it a long ride, a hike or some other adventure as far away from busy places as possible. But as summer has arrived all of those places have become occupied. We still walk the old lane but even that creeps into the tedium box after you’ve walked it 63.5 times. We had tried to get outside of the box but this summer that outer world has felt different. It probably isn’t but it feels more full, more crowded and definitely more noisy. So with that comes the frustration and at times boredom like the dogs in the chicken coop next door.

We can’t do anything about overcrowded summer spaces, we live on a densely populated island. This happened this summer, and it will happen next summer, year after year. But the problem with the frustration is that without the escape of a wilderness which is currently full, and a void in creativity which has been lost, where is the outlet for this? We can ride and walk the lanes of home, these things help (a lot), but sometimes we all need something new. Whether it’s seeing a new place or reading new words that we’ve just written and thinking - where the fuck did that come from? (You’ve had this moment too, haven't you).

We all need variety, and at times we all need something different. I’d hazard a guess that this is one of the things that contributed to the mental health challenges faced by many throughout the pandemic. Sameness, familiarity, routine, are all things that contribute to our ontological security, but when you’ve walked the same road time after time with nothing new it becomes a chore. Chores are repetitive and without joy, creativity can be repetitive but at least it’s filled with your own agency. As I’m writing this, I’m not following a brief or a buyer persona or an assignment guide. It might be messy and unkempt and contain the occasional swear word or two, but you know what, that is what comes when we write from our minds.  And isn’t that the best thing about blog writing? It’s a way that we can escape, jump into the minds of others, find connections with our own turmoils and passions and realise that this world is filled with creativity. Our minds are so damn beautiful and powerful, not in a conquer and divide sense but more the capacity of what we can do when we just have the space to do so. 

Privilege.

When we talk about privilege just the reference to it feels awkward, as a precursor to activism or a reaction to want. It can be neither or both of these things. Talking about being lost in the days while losing our creativity would feel weird or wrong to not mention privilege. Privilege is mostly spoken about in terms of economic means, after all, Western neoliberal societies are obsessed with the material and the props that they believe make them feel fulfilled. But privilege isn’t just that. For me, it’s having the space and time to be able to express yourself. Allowing yourself the belief that you can write or draw or create, and that nobody or nothing can take that from you.

The campsite...

After some weeks of out-of-the-ordinary routines, social gatherings and general busyness, yesterday we regrouped at the campsite. Me, J and my dad...

The campsite is quite a significant place for us. My dad has an old touring van that he keeps there all year round, and it's the one place where we can go to just sit, talk and switch off. It’s our space and while there, it’s our time. Dad recently told me that not too long ago he’d had a sort of panic attack while in work. It had been a busy day and he’d had a lot thrown at him while expecting to wear all of the hats; problem solver - mediator - service with a smile. He’d told me that on that day he almost hit his limit, and he had an urge to jump in his car, switch his phone off and go to the campsite. He didn’t know why that came to him, but it was his fight or flight response and in that moment it was all he could think of. We all have our sanctuaries, the campsite is our version of that. After these recent weeks of endless driving, trips around the country, holding family and friends gatherings, we’d lost ourselves as well as our connection to each other, until yesterday, when we came back together at the campsite.

I'll be honest about the campsite. It’s not like the stories and images. We don't sit there having fires and telling old tales deep into the night - often it’s cleaning the van and emptying the Judge’s toilet (our van). But even when we’re hosing out a portaloo or clearing cobwebs from the roof window, it’s still an escape. We spoke about it yesterday. Circled in our camp chairs eating Morrison’s sausage rolls as the dog picked up pastry crumbs around our feet, we spoke about the way we live our lives.

It’s a running joke that our van plot is speaker's corner as when we’re there my dad likes to talk politics and he often forgets his hearing aid so it ends up being a bit loud at times. 'Must be Trump’s hot air coming over’ - he’d boomed as we'd looked up at the haze in the sky, seemingly ashen from the wildfires in America making their way over here. The jokes were then followed by a conversation about life. In this space, we had room to talk, not just about chores or work or things that needed to be done. I got into thinking about this and said to Dad something about living from the heart.

Live from the heart...

What I mean by this is that when life is busy and we don’t have the privilege to be ourselves, to focus on our creativity, and work out what we're really feeling, our happiness can often become replaced by a pseudo-joy that comes from buying things and having things. I'll touch light on the online attention economy but this too becomes pseudo-joy where we begin to live through what others think about us. So whether it's living through things or attention, what we're not doing when in a state of pseudo-joy is living from the heart, or any depth of who we are. I think this is why we can become empty and existent. What life is this when happiness is buying rather than being? How having things and the fleeting dopamine rush that comes from them is what begins to constitute life.

When I said to my old man about living from the heart, I meant that things that come from you, from within. Some months back in the night I’d wake with a smile about the thing I was working on as that thing truly was an anchor in the ocean of night. Right now, I'd felt I’d lost it. But those things are ours to find again and that's why I’m here writing this thing right now. Not because I believe it will be read or have any weight in the world. At more than twelve minutes long any copy or blog writing guru would tell me I need to be more 'succinct'. But as I said before, this write-up is written and shared to reclaim some creativity for myself. If it's a long one then it's because it needed to be. I calved out the space to write it because I needed to talk to myself.

So, privilege. It's not just about money. It’s about the space and place we have to be who we really are, beyond our pseudo joys and distractions. Our afternoon at the campsite had given all three of us some of that.  

Reclaiming creativity....

In this world, where everyone is talking and few are listening it can be difficult to find our creative voices. We are told ’that’s a hobby’ or that we shouldn’t have the drive nor aspiration to try to earn from it. Those who have tell us that ‘It won’t make you a living’, emails go unanswered and certain industries become ringfenced by the Wizards of Elite. Some of us are laughed at for trying to be creative, and some of us are told we are not good enough, that we used the wrong materials for our art, or that our rhyming poetry is crass. All of these things, the negativity, the hoarding, the ring-fencing, come from a society that tells people like us to stop being creative. To focus on the things that matter, that creativity is not one of them. You and I both know that this is one of a few reasons why we can become lost in the days, throwing ourselves into existing while losing our creative inner world.

Creativity is really important for all of us. I meet a lot of people through my work and I can honestly say that almost everyone I meet is deeply creative in some way. It is a part of each and every one of us and when we are allowed the space to be creative I see the happiness that comes from it, the wellbeing, and the health it brings for us all. Is it any wonder why certain greedy groups want to keep that for themselves? Our creative rut probably came from this as well as the lack of escape in our lives over recent weeks. And so, as I finish this write-up with J and my son sat at the table behind me, in their final combat of a Warhammer battle (You got a six, the luck's not on me any more!), I am relieved to begin to write again and actually finish this blog post. Because believe me, there were many others that never made it past the third paragraph. This is our first step to reclaiming our voices. It might sound really cringe, or one of those overly emotive internet statements, but having that voice, being able to write, or draw, or paint or create an amazing new gadget or recipe is who we really are in this world. It's tribal, it’s real and it's our rawest selves coming to the surface.