The pain.
Here’s a little thing that some people know too well and some people will absolutely never understand.
Creativity can hurt.
Sometimes it could be actual physical pain; getting cut by an Xacto knife while making a mock-up for example. But that’s really not what I’m talking about.
I’m talking about the emotional anguish that is associated with creativity. There’s lots that’s been covered about the anguish one can feel while working through a creative problem, furtively trying to find the solution. But one thing that’s not covered a lot is the anguish one can feel when creativity isn’t in full bloom, lying dormant, cramping one’s style.
Let’s take music for example. As I write this post, I’m sitting on my lower patio with a cocktail in hand tending to some steaks on the grill. As is the norm for this activity, I’ve got some music playing on the patio speakers. There has been a handful of songs that have just made my heart ache. One or two because of lyrics, but mostly because the songs touched the visceral part of my creative core and said to me, “You could be doing this. You have done this before. Why can’t you do this again?”
Most music makes me melancholy because it touches a part of my creative being that I’ve let severely atrophy. I’ve had the opportunity to make and perform a couple of new songs lately, and after each performance I couldn’t help but think about how each song would have been ten times better 12 years ago when I lived and breathed music composition and performance.
And now “Red Headed Stranger” by Willie Nelson is on and that just guts me for its sheer simplicity.
I don’t really know where I was going with this. I guess I just felt that pang in my gut that said, “Create, asshole!” and I picked up the first thing that allowed me to feel better.