Both I guess…

Lately I’ve been struggling with what I want to do in my free time. I want to draw. I want to make music. I want to workout more. I want to study Japanese more often. I want to make TikTok’s with Nikki. I want to do small improvements to our Home. I want to learn to make gold grills. I want to stream myself gaming, I want to complete my backlog of video games. I want to listen to podcasts, I want to watch movies and tv shows I’ve missed or heard good things about. I want to discover new music. I want to blog more often. I want to create things that people love that can make me some extra money.

I am overwhelmed with choice. It’s crippling. Seriously. I must sound like a little bitch, but it’s true. The moment I sit down to do something I find myself doing…nothing. The amount of choice paralyzes me. I’ve noticed one thing though; when this feeling hits I always end up “consuming” instead of “creating”. Then 4 hours of time I could have used to blog or study Japanese suddenly was used watching YouTube videos or some shit.

Why?

Am I just a consumer parading as a creator? To be honest that’s how it makes me feel. On rare occasions when I do sit down and focus on creating something, I almost immediately feel like I accomplished nothing at all. Not in the sense of completing the task, I did that, but more like in a sense of it meaning anything. Am I making sense? Like I’ll look at my art and be like, this is cool, but now what? What do I do with it? Which now leads me to ask, why do I feel that way.

The internet.

I see all these cool people doing all these cool things and (perhaps? maybe?) profiting off of it. I want that for me lol. Am I a creator? Or do I just want money? Is it that simple, probably. Probably not though. I find a ton of joy in drawing and other activities. So why do I feel it also has to pay off in the end. Why can’t it be about the journey instead of the destination? I simultaneously feel like a driver and a passenger in that scenario. Eyes on the road trying to get somewhere, but also trying to look out the window at all the cool shit along the way.

How do I (or we if you relate) combat this juxtaposition? Choose a side in this middle ground? I’m not really sure. I think procrastination is only partly to blame so I can fight that enemy, because I can recognize it. But, it isn’t always that. I understand that when I want to workout, but instead go watch tv, I’m procrastinating. That’s easy and I’m honest with myself about it. But if I’m holding my iPad in my hand, procreate app open, pencil in hand ready to draw, but then can’t think of anything to draw. I’m not procrastinating. Am I? I’m genuinely trying to create, but wonder what I’m even trying to create for (even though I really want to create). That’s where I get stuck.

Create to Create

This is kind of the best answer I can give myself. Do it to do it because you want to do it. Fuck everything else. So I guess I’ll start with this one directive and see where it leads. My hope is to strike a balance between creator me and consumer me. Neither is the bad guy as long as they get equal time on stage.

Thanks for reading. here’s something I drew recently.