I took this photo in Leu Gardens (I seem to post a lot of photos taken there).
I titled this post “creativity” because, well, I feel as though I’ve lost mine (I flatter myself that I had some). I don’t seem to have much “vision” when taking pictures, I’m at a sort of standstill when it comes to writing (I don’t want to say writer’s block, but perhaps more of that below), and my musical endeavors (playing guitar and writing music/songs) basically, well, are just boring me. That’s maybe a good way to say all of this–I seem to be boring myself. Part of my sense of self is that I’m a creative person, and I seem to have gotten stuck somewhere along the line.
I read essays on the creative process, books even, and, to the extent they have suggestions/techniques I try them. I really think all that nice helpful stuff is a bit skewed, off to the side, of what’s bugging me. I guess, since I’m boring myself, I feel as though anything I do would bore anyone else, too. The sad part is, it has extended itself into my appreciation of creative works by others. Everything has started to seem trite, hackneyed, etc. It seems, at least in my case, that the same spark which gets the creative juices going gets the creativity-appreciation juices going. And it ain’t going. It’s like my aesthetic switch has been thrown to the “off” position.
I suppose the hackneyed phrase “writer’s block” could just as easily be applied to any sort of creative endeavor, but I think it sort of misses the point with what’s troubling me. (I was hoping not to ramble on here . . .). Maybe the problem is that I need something to matter. Every creative endeavor involves choices, in order to make a choice it must seem to the chooser that a is in some way better than b. A photo needs to be cropped–what to leave in, what to leave out. It is perhaps the ability to choose which makes craft into art, who knows.
As I said above, this is largely a self-image, and self-respect thing, an identity thing. I don’t need to, and have not real intention of, trying to make a living via creativity. And, lately, other than posting some photos here and on Flickr, I’m not exposing anything I do to anyone. Maybe it’s just existential angst.
