Traveling with a bunch of luggage is taxing.
Living with a bunch of baggage is taxing.
Creation… it seems to me…
Is a process through which the items in your metaphorical bags are unpacked… alchemized into some expressive medium… and left there once finished.
As writing an idea frees your mind from holding it any longer… creating frees your metaphorical bags from having to carry them any longer.
…For lighter, further, freer life travel.
I tap my screen
While urgency sleeps
Before important clocks in
As busy decompresses
During the void hours
Mostly nights; some days
To nothing; blank
…Maybe a 12:19
I’ll sometimes sigh
Maybe slouch or frown
But never visibly
Never audibly
Not even here
Will I show it
Not even here
Will it hit my ear
Your name glowing
And only your name
Urgently protruding
Importantly colored; bordered
Filling the void
Pointing my mind
Towards entropy
Away from order
I’ll sometimes crave it
The spontaneity… the drama…
The fiery… the crazy…
The beautiful messy
The epitome
Of the nature
Of the universe
Presented perfectly
In your letters, your glow
My casual touch
Your chaos, your flow
My orderly house
Us merging; the mess
It always ends better
You send a text
And I straighten, smirk…
Though you’d never know it
Because I remember… ghost.
P.s. You can read my other poems here.
You can assemble a car, but you can’t assemble a flower.
A flower can only be grown.
And when you rush the creative process, you start to assemble instead of grow.
Any internet skimmer, quick-fixer side-hustler, AI app can assemble.
…But what we need now more than ever are people who can grow.
…It is only ever caused from within.
To realize this is to realize an unbelievable power.
One where insults, hate, and toxicity no longer cause misery.
…But have no effect on your inner weather at all.
What affects your inner weather is what you allow… what you consent to… what you honor, organize, and prioritize.
Proceed accordingly.
I read a super basic personal development post the other day.
It offered basic listicle style advice (think: S.M.A.R.T. Goals) and included pretty standard examples.
And there’s nothing wrong with this.
But the more I read and write, the more I realize how important story is.
Like… give me some personal context… some uniqueness… make me travel somewhere new… tell me how you’ve fallen, and clawed, and survived… tell me about your North Star; your light. Tell me what got you through the dark… through the dirt. Tell me what helped you… who helped you. And what they said. Tell me specific examples and yes… get into the nitty gritty. Tell me what also fell flat. Tell me a story like this and reel me in. Tell me how you’ve bled.
Teleport me somewhere and make my screen disappear.
Then…
Tell me the insight/advice.
Leaving everything above out with just the few lines of advice does very little for me. And not to mention you’re not even a real life, in front of me human… you’re pixels popping up on my screen. Write something that’ll make me connect with you. In a way that doesn’t extend screen to eye, but in a way that travels eye to eye… where screen and pixels disappear… where the internet and clouds and apps do what they were originally intended to do… and connect us human-to-human with just a few clicks. One mind being downloaded, encoded into 1s and 0s, sent like lightening to the other, decoded back to word and phrases… and read seamlessly within seconds.
Yes… tell me your story.
Forget a few lines of naked advice.
I take my writing streak seriously.
And I can remember many nights when I would get home late, after an exhausting day, have nothing drafted, and be faced with the pain-staking decision of whether I should try to force a creation or rest.
…I can even remember nights when I would arrive to my computer at 2am, barely able to open my laptop, hunched so close to the screen that the blue light might as well have been injected right into my retinas, hazily and hastily trying to replay and recreate a moment or story from the day, one that I could squeeze a drop of insight from, from a frame of mind where all that seemed to be happening was an HD recording of the misery and toughness that I kept choosing to sit in moment after moment… after moment.
…And yet.
In those moments when I did see my way through… I never felt regret for what was created.
See there’s something whimsical and divine about creating in those spaces in between the awake and the asleep state.
…Where thoughts are free to merge together while floating in a dream-like haze.
…Where you’re too tired to care about rules… about perfection… about opinions.
…Where identity and brand melts away and pure life source and collective unconscious remains.
There’s no question that creating while well rested, organized, and motivated is effective.
And there’s no doubt that in many cases, rest will be the better decision made.
…But don’t underestimate the power and potential of creating while tired and near misery.
My internet browser told me today, “Turn on Brave news and never miss a story.”
And boy does that sound awful.
But boy do people in society treat it as their duty to be “in the know” 24/7 and submit to the never-ending news cycle that pedals fear, hate, and doom round and round and round the clock.
Here’s a newsflash: it’s not.
In fact, missing just about all of the modern day news stories would probably result in a massive upgrade in mental health if I had to speculate.
Because here’s what’s not speculation: “If it bleeds, it leads“; “If it burns; it earns“; and it can only take around 14 minutes of news consumption to increase anxiety and depression symptoms.
…Imagine never missing a story where stories built on the above pillars are being pedaled 24/7?
Yeah. Maybe they need to change their pitch.
And yeah, maybe we need to reconsider our “duty.”