Inspiration

I am a bit of a creative by nature.

This is by no means saying that I am necessarily good at creating things, or even prone to it. What I mean is that things feel right when I make things, whether they be photography, writing, woodworking, or code. Recently, I’ve done very little of that, falling into my more consumptive hobbies like movies and video games, and everything feels wrong.

I’ve been in this creative rut for the past few months. This does coincide with me finding employment again, which is a bit ironic considering that now I have so much more mental space to myself to create things now that I’m free of the anxiety of finding a job and dread of being stuck forever without one.

The problem is, the wave of relief brought a wave of complacency. I like my job and I believe myself to be quite decent at it, and it’d be nice to stay this way for a while. I don’t know how that mentality has bled into my creative process, but I think I need to sit down and pick things apart to see if I can jumpstart myself. It’s a spiral of needing inspiration to do things, but needing to do things to inspire myself to do more.

I had a bit of a spark today though. My son was out in the front yard while I was cleaning up, and he asked me for my mallet so that he could smash some acorns he had found. Instead of handing him mine, I pulled out the lathe and spent half an hour turning a kid-size one for him.

It’s not quite the right shape and I didn’t bother finishing the ends, but he was very happy with it and got to smashing, and I had forgotten how good it feels to have your work appreciated.