CREATIVITY AS GROWTH

Welcome! To July, my favorite month. To this blog, that I miss dearly.  The cracks and crevices in which I used to make time for journaling and documenting here has disappeared into thin air.  A few months ago it was because I was surviving. These days it's because I'm enjoying life... so it's a good sort of hiatus.  However, I am aching for some uninterrupted time to write!  I'm seriously thinking about how I can plan some sort of solo writing retreat for myself somehow.  The solo part is key.  In the meanwhile, I need to carve my morning routine back into each day. 

I've been thinking about creativity as growth these days, and I wanted to jot them down here as part of my creativity series that I've been doing here for a while.  (I'll link past posts of the series below!)

I used to bemoan the fact that while I was semi-good at several things, I didn’t have one area of expertise. It felt detrimental to my identity that I didn’t have a Thing.  I was probably looking for that thing to be the defining thing about me?  This search stemmed from this idea I had (from who knows where) that if I both loved and was good at a thing, it would make me more of a successful person. 

More recently I see my multi-interests and jack-of-all-trades tendencies as it’s own sort of identifying characteristic. It is my ease of being able to move from one thing to another, my ability to go deeper on any given topic or field, and my big picture perspective that is my real strength. It’s a completely different sort of identifying trait; it’s not a Thing that defines me, it’s my approach to life that identifies me. An attitude? A curiosity? And when I think about it, I like that I’m that way. That’s what age does, helps me appreciate things about myself that I didn’t appreciate before. It’s a simple as that.

For example, within creative endeavors, my strength is that as I dabble in a lot of things, grow ideas and even pursue many of those ideas, the treasure I mine out of this exercise is not the product, but the process. The finished product is amazing and wonderful, but my mindset can make or break my satisfaction with the endeavor. For me personally that means that once I make something, and release it into the world, the feedback from people doesn’t overshadow the joy that I had in creating it.  The sensation of growth that I experienced in the dreaming and making of it, is what is fulfilling.  And I think that state of appreciating the process is what it means to live a creative life. 

Other posts: Thinking About Creativity, Creating Invigorates, Creativity in Community, Creativity as Connection, Creativity Right Now