~ creativity ~

"You can't use up creativity.  The more you use, the more you have."
~ Maya Angelou

Well said, Maya.  As I am currently experiencing a creativity dry spell due to lack of inspiration, lack of sleep, and lack of time, I figured writing about it couldn't hurt.  So here we go.

Creativity is a fickle thing.  It can be fully present one minute, and miles away the next.  And as it isn't a physical thing, but instead, a state of mind, there is no way to "capture" creativity or hold onto it and not let it go.  If that were possible, then everyone who was creative during their childhood would remain creative, far into adulthood.  

Not that I'm an expert in child-rearing by any means, but it doesn't take a genius to notice that most kids love doodling on various objects - paper, walls, dried up leaves ( keep in mind I was a hippie child) - with crayons, colored pencils, or smashed berries (again....I was a hippie child).  However, in many cases, this natural creativity is funneled out of a child at a certain age instead of being refined and shaped into a unique set of skills.  I was one of the lucky ones who grew up according to no one else's standards and who grew into no one else's mold.  My childhood was free-range - I could play as much as I wanted, draw as much as I wanted, and try new things, without the promise of/pressure of success.

As I'm now (technically) grown up, and my childhood is now (technically) over, that natural creativity has been allowed to grow as wild as it wants for close to twenty years.  For the most part, it's consistently present, but I still have times where it seems to whither away and for a week or so I fear that it won't ever come back.  Just ask anyone who lives with me or has spent a significant amount of time with me - every few months, right on cue, I have a minor midlife/I've-lost-all-my-creativity/I'll-never-amount-to-anything crisis that leaves me downtrodden and defeated, and that seems to vanish as quickly as it came.

So before I resign myself to an uncreative and unsatisfying life of cubicles and khaki pants (not that there's anything wrong with that), I'm giving myself complete freedom to do as I please - playing as much as I want, drawing as much as I want, and trying new things, without the promise of/pressure of success.

xoxo,
Eliza