It’s up to you to create the magic
The terribly frightening and simultaneously freeing notion you need to contend with this month is we are indeed (a little bit) in charge of our own destiny.
Hey you, yes you. When was the last time you looked at who you are, what you do and how you feel about it and said, “wowee, I am having a great time!”?
When was the last time you didn’t sidle up to ambition, roll out the cards on your chest, and seek her glowing approval?
Can you recall the last time you wiped away the questions, “Have I made enough? Done enough? Crossed enough off that to-do list?” and got on with the rest of your day?
Today, right now, there will be people you can reach out to in order to rubberstamp your existence in the hurly burly maelstrom. You just have to keep asking, showing up, performing, building, reminding people you exist.
Click, click, click.
Better, better, better.
Buy, buy, buy.
Dammit, little freelancer. Why aren’t you being all you can magically be?
I’ll tell you why.
Because you’re already doing enough. You exist in a world that doesn’t tell you this often enough. Instead, it dangles opportunity at you like sausage in a deli window. It keeps asking you to bite, bite, bite.
But at a certain point, we all get our fill of it, you know? We’ve run a marathon and ten miles more emotionally, physically and intellectually these last few years. We’ve turned up, stumped up, and done all we can.
However, even as wonderful and applied as you are, it’s OK to say the levy (if not at breaking point), needs a fucking break.
The creative salve
When I despair at the fatigue within, I lack a deeper sense of creation.
1. I forget first and foremost that I am a writer. And that while other areas of life may become seductive and attractive, writing is where I feel the most centred, applied and complete.
2. I restrict what is the right writing. I feel just as much accomplishment with writing a long form, helpful comment in the Freelance Jungle as I do with this newsletter or a client’s blog. And yet, I overwhelm myself with thoughts of reach and longevity.
3. I forget that pressure lowers my creativity. The more I play, the better I am at writing, focussing, solving problems and dealing with people. Thou shalt not skip the flowers to toil at the empty mental garden bed.
And yes, even this is steeped in privilege, but my goodness it let’s me turn a mental corner. It was a humbling reminder to engage with this at my last week of the writer-in-residency at the Wollongong Botanic Gardens.
Although that lesson was all too fleeting for the crunchy melon head vibes I am currently feeling. And I know there is a luxury in saying “just bugger off and create something” in some “let them eat cake” flounce when the latest client, community or kid-related obligation comes a-calling.
When I create, I mean:
a) Time for the people and places that matter
b) Moments away from obligation and work
c) Mess. In life, love, the kitchen and the garden
d) Spontaneous forms of expression
e) Dance moves as the kettle boils
f) Whimsy in the ordinary – like heckling the middle-aged surfers staring at the waves who would feel better if they just got in the ocean anyway or asking a French Bulldog at the shops how was his day.
We are on a rock hurtling towards environmental catastrophe, trying to ignore death and make sense out of capitalism and Twitter. If that’s not a sign we kind of need to create more, imbibe more nonsensical stuff and consume less bad vibes while giving the middle finger to a whole host of arbitrary forms of responsibility, I don’t know what is.
Image: Morale Officer Gibson the Labrador Retriever reminding me there is more to life than this work thing.
When was the last time you:
· Shut that book or that article or video because you didn’t care as much about SEO schema as you thought you did?
· Gave up on writing the social media post on your marketing plan and instead, said something surprisingly real?
· Made a poster for the rock concert you’ll never have instead of the next social media visual in Canva?
· Went somewhere and didn’t talk about work or anything that felt remotely like responsibility?
What matters in the end, really?
We convince ourselves it matters so we continue to participate. If we do the thing, we will get the hamster reward. The coin, the kudos, the path to the next thing.
But what if what we’re seeking doesn’t bring what it thinks?
As my Dad was handed the news he was finally out of options when it came to cancer treatment, his head couldn’t cope. It broke and it fought against the inevitable. But he did manage to stammer out in amongst the sheer enormity of his plight with a broken voice that haunts me still, if he only had six to twelve months, he would rather spend it travelling. And then he muttered through the snot and resentful resignation a list of places he might like to see.
It was the last conversation of hope I had with him. It was a first step in accepting he was dying. But he didn’t move forward for very long. I called back the next week and he was heading back to a doctor’s office for more chemo. Chemo that basically reduced his quality of life and sadly, ended it far more prematurely.
My point is this-
We are put here to create. This is why we have jobs, build houses, renovate, learn instruments, have babies, write books, bake cakes, and make communities around everything from our neighbourhood to football teams.
As we doomscroll past everyone else’s perfectly curated ideas and/or endlessly performing colonoscopies on our sales funnels, we never create contentment with ourselves or a path away from comparison or the unfairness of this sensationally absurd life we’re often living.
Right now, I want you to touch the creative person inside of you and ask (without thinking about work or volunteer obligations and those sorts of things)
When was the last time you:
· Created something for pleasure?
· Worked on a business relationship or a connection not for the payoff but for the wonderful place it may lead you both?
· Spent the day creating kind comments for other people’s achievements on social media over consuming articles on how to promote your own?
· Did something you were terribly bad at simply to remind yourself that you don’t have to be good at something to try it?
· Built something based on its own merits?
· Taught yourself something because it intrigued you instead of relating to a commercial purpose?
· Got messy and laughed doing it?
If you want to create in a compassionate space, join me for the last virtual coworking session for the year, powered by Patreon.
And/or if you feel like watching others as they indulge the art of creation, cheer five lucky people in Sarah, Annetta, Martina, Grace and yours truly on at the final Deadline Party for 2022.
Or simply pop by to wear a funny hat, have a drink and a chat at the last party gathering.
No matter what you do, create something on your terms. And feel good about it, too.
Love and other ways we create mischief,
Rebekah
PS: This festive season, I want you to watch this presentation Jess and I did for the Lifting the Lid festival on why we need to talk about death to save our family from unimaginable pain. Why? Because that meal or catch up you’ll have is the perfect time to get it sorted. Please.