Confessions of a Creative Slacker
Don't worry -- this is not going to be some exploration of that demographic known as the 13th generation, sometimes called slackers. I'm too busy figuring out what I want to say for myself to become a spokesperson for my peers. (I can see it now: Susan, Slacker Princess! Wait... that doesn't sound half bad... oh, sorry.) I speak here of a phenomenon that crosses generations: the creative machinations many artistic types go through to avoid actually creating anything. In that regard, I have been living the slacker life for longer than I like to admit.
Will this be the great work about the immense amount of effort that's required not to create? No. It's just an examination of the idea. I can't be bothered with anything more complex. Sometimes the effort itself takes more energy than the creation would have... except of course we'll never know that for certain, will we? Somehow, though, we often want to spend more time and effort avoiding creation rather than creating. Certainly everyone goes through phases of this; it's when this becomes the norm and the good, creative and productive time becomes the rarity that there's cause for concern.
Or maybe not... maybe the world will keep turning if you don't write your words, paint your pictures or sing your songs. Of course, then your gifts just rot inside you like uneaten fruit.
I know, I know... just do it, I can hear you saying already. Even being tapped (or maybe even rapped) on the head by a goddess of creativity and inspiration doesn't always help. The fire is lit, the cauldron is bubbling, but somewhere between the Source of Inspiration and its vessel (moi) there seems to be a Drano-sized clog. It's one of my own making, of course, but there it sits. No one is stopping me but me, it seems. This is my own doing, and my putting it down on paper is my search for something to which I can attribute my lack of productivity.
Why do I do this? What am I afraid of? Why do we spend all this effort to keep from creating, instead of on creation itself? Are we simply incapable of actually doing anything, or afraid to try for fear of embarrassment and failure? Have we been told we have nothing to say? Should none of this matter? (Possibly.) Am I thinking too hard? (Probably.)
There's not going to be a razor-sharp, witty and well-thought-out conclusion to this piece; it's not a geometric proof. These are simply impressions, some of the thoughts I had while wrestling with the question, and since it was getting kind of crowded in my head I thought I'd share them. (We'll just forget those clogged drains and rotted pieces of fruit and think of these as some nice verbal Renoirs instead.) If you have found yourself in the same shoes, you're not alone.
Creative Avoidance, or How to Outsmart Your Inner Artist
Given: Any creative person with any reasonable amount of ingenuity can -- and probably will -- find a way to avoid whatever she should be doing, and do so in such a way that it actually suggests an artistic endeavor other than psychological smoke and mirrors. Since most creative people are full of ingenuity (being creative types and all that), this state of creative inactivity is easily and often reached.
For whatever reason, this seems to be in the Rule Book for Creative People under the section, "How to Get Nothing Done While Looking Like You're Actually Doing Something."I don't pretend to know why; I am just reporting the phenomenon, not explaining. Also, I'm not the only artist I know who does this.
Happily, as a person whose creative gifts lie in two fields, I have the advantage of being able to use the practice of one craft to avoid the other. Don't feel like writing? Well, there's a harp right here I've been dying to play. Got a gig coming up? Hey, now's a good time to start that essay! (I imagine that people who are multi-talented can manage to get quite a bit done as long as they are avoiding something else, rather like jugglers who can do both torches and dinnerware.) Outsmarting the Inner Artist: Now there's an ingenious idea for a self-help tape.
But even the allure of escaping one art by way of the other pales after a time -- after all, eventually you will be doing something if you aren't careful -- and the would-be slacker must step outside the studio and venture forth into the rest of her home, also known as the Wide World of Distractions.
Next... Home is Where the Distraction Is,
or Woolgathering for Creative Types
1, 2, 3
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