In 2008 and 2009, I wrote blog articles about my observations while building LessEverything with Steve. In 2010, I stopped writing. I was too busy. The desire to write was lost. I couldn’t think of anything to write about. Nothing jumped out at me. I lost the itch.
Creativity is a fickle muscle, one that flattens out every moment you don’t exercise it. Ignored it and it will atrophy.
You can only quench the muscle’s thirst for creativity by allowing your creations to freely come to life and see the light of day.
Once creativity tastes freedom, the muscle will fight to stay alive and fit. Allow your creative self to give birth to beauty more often, and you’ll find yourself trying to satisfy a craving you have to continue creating. Give your soul over to creativity, and don’t try to tame it. You want it to take over.
A few months ago, I hired an editor (meet Mark Boss), and I made the commitment to write every day for half an hour. The product after that time of writing may or may not make it into the blog, but the point is to write. I’m back working that creative muscle more than ever.
Creativity is a jealous muscle. When you produce work that doesn’t allow the muscle to work, it becomes jealous. It wants to work. Writing is just one of my creative muscles. When I’m showing one muscle more attention than the others they get jealous.
When you create something that isn’t beautiful, the muscle isn’t satisfied. In reality, it’s disgusted. You’ll tell it to shut up, the paycheck is good. In fact, you can stamp it out altogether. You can smother it with good paychecks. You can eventually silence your creativity by working with an approval committee, checking your email too often or succumbing to other countless distractions. Be careful not to kill your creativity by working with clients that don’t care about your art. Without thinking, you’ll allow the creative muscle to atrophy, and you’ll lock your creativity back in its cage. Be warned, however, if you put your creativity in a cage enough times, you’ll soon find that your muscle has gone for good.
If you wanted it to build a product you’d find a way to get time to work on it. If you really wanted to start that new hobby you’d sacrifice something to find the time and money to do it.
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