The ‘Potential’ of a Gremlin
THE CREATIVE CIRCLE is BOTH MAKING AND SHARING
It’s been a while since I felt anxious, unworthy and overwhelmed. But here, like a thief in the night, those feelings came back.
On Monday morning, I felt inspired; I danced in the street and felt the sun on my face. By Monday afternoon, I felt fatigued and sad. On Monday night, I went into full-on purge mode, burning things, craving sleep and taking stock of my life.
Come Tuesday, I wake up with an urge to declutter, to rid myself of unnecessary baggage. Yet, as the day progresses, I find myself drowning in overwhelm. Tuesday night rolls around, and I'm left feeling anxious and utterly drained. On Wednesday, I felt renewed.
These waves of emotion come and go, each one shedding old skin and revealing a new layer of growth. And while I've been down this road before, I can't help but berate myself for succumbing to such intense emotions and for feeling anxious about not making music.
Changes in mood, feelings that are too personal, too sacred and quite frankly, too wishy-washy to share publicly. And yet I share them here because it’s helpful for other Gremlins to see reflected in real time the tos and fros of emotions and S I M U L T A N E O U S L Y knowing one must remember that I am not the emotion and scaffold a container to hold it.
Anxiety is a sympton of unfufilled creative potential.
Creative potential is BOTH the making and the sharing.
BOTH halves of the circle in equal measure need to be honored.
The nugget amidst the storm? This revelation: I feel anxious when I don't fulfil my creative potential. It eats me up; I can’t concentrate, I get fidgety, I can’t pay attention, and I feel like a failure, like I’m letting myself down.
Sure. We know this.
BUT GREMLINS, HERE IS THE REVELATION. My potential is not just to receive and make but also to share. And not sharing is equally as guilt-inducing as not making.
CREATION IS NOT JUST THE FIRST HALF OF THE CIRCLE OF RECEIVING THE IDEA AND MAKING THE IDEA. CREATING IS THE SECOND HALF, TO SHARE THE IDEA AND GIVE THE IDEA.
I used to think till this week that creativity is the making and receiving. But the act of creation also involves sharing. If I don’t share and share right, I get equally pent up and unbearable.
THE CREATIVE CIRCLE IS NOT FULFILLED UNTIL BOTH HALVES OF THE ARC ARE JOINED. I realised this was why I was anxious.
WORK ON DISPLAY
An exciting update. As part of the opening of Selfridge’s exclusive VIP Lounge, five pieces of my artwork are displayed in the new lounge on the 8th floor of Selfridges. The works are on display for private viewing and will be up this Spring and Summer.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Yay, it's official. I can finally announce that I've been selected as one of the artists commissioned for the Regents Park story trail. 'Space to Breathe' is a restorative sound and colour project. For this brief, I will create a mural inspired by the paintings and captions I gather from sound healing workshops that I host for residents and users of Regents Park Estate.
MUSINGS
When a magical idea comes knocking, you have three options.
“ You can receive your ideas with respect and curiosity, not with drama or dread. You can clear out whatever obstacles are preventing you from living your most creative life, with the simple understanding that whatever is bad for you is probably also bad for your work. You can lay off the booze a bit in order to have a keener mind. You can nourish healthier relationships in order to keep yourself undistracted by self-invented emotional catastrophes. You can dare to be pleased sometimes with what you have created. (And if a project doesn't work out, you can always think of it as having been a worthwhile and constructive experiment.) You can resist the seductions of grandiosity, blame, and shame. You can support other people in their creative efforts, acknowledging the truth that there's plenty of room for everyone. You can measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures. You can battle your demons (through therapy, recovery, prayer or humility) instead of battling your gifts – in part by realising that your demons were never the ones doing the work, anyhow. You can believe that you are neither a slave to inspiration nor its master, but something far more interesting – its partner – and that the two of you are working together towards something intriguing and worthwhile. You can live a long life, making and doing really cool things the entire time. You might earn a living with your pursuits or you might not, but you can recognise that this is not really the point. And at the end of your days, you can thank creativity for having blessed you with a charmed, interesting, passionate existence.
That’s another way to do it.”
- Elizabeth Gilbert
‘A new wave of healers.’ This phrase keeps coming to me. Till next week, fellow surfer, we got this.
Karimah
