3 Spiritual Lessons Years of “Making Things” Have Taught Me
An agnostic creative’s take on what it means to create.
When I was 6, I stapled cutouts of drawings; stuffed the paper sleeve with tissue shreds and made my very first Pikachu “soft toy”. You can imagine, it’s not that soft. But the lesson learnt from making that zero-sugar 2.5D piñata (apart from the fact that resource scarcity is the mother of creativity)?
Bringing something to life out of sheer will and two hands feel so damn good.
11 years down the road, I became more of that little girl. I fix my own earphones (thank you YouTube), stitch my own Frankenstein books, make music, art and my own perfumes. I sacrifice sleep to develop skills that won’t be making me bucks anytime soon.
I’m not a Jill of all trades. Neither am I a master of none. I am a creator. But I’m also a consumer. A consumer with this existential preference to make things with whatever humanly, earthly vessel I was born in.
So here are the 3 things I’ve come to realise, spiritually.
#1 —I am a Creative Being
First I was created. Then I found ways to create. Between consumption and creation, the latter has always been the path. It turns me into more of the person I would like to be. It is an answer to the how-do-I-exist question rather than the why-do-I-exist question. I already know why I exist. I just need to find better ways to live creatively.
So this is the very core of who I am, how I connect with the universe— and who I’m still becoming. My stronger sense of self manifests in such a way that I can only conclude, I’m a creative being.
#2— A Creative Being Gets Stuck in a Cycle of Restlessness
Cursed with a restless mind, I keep a mental DIY list. On this list, there are at least 3 things I’d love to do. When the list is empty, I can expect mental moping ( poor me, nothing on my to-do list).
Right now, I have:
- Experiment with Jagua ink
- Weave Celtic knots with nylon threads
- Make “rain” perfume
Of course, there’s always Netflix and with it, intense vegetative action on the couch.
#3— When I Create, I Break the Cycle and Release Creative Energy
Ever experienced that steady sense of euphoria spilling from the edge of your being when you find yourself not lost, but lost in the moment of a making something (writing, painting, dancing etc.)?
I can never properly define that immense pleasure or “creative high” that hits me when I’m in the flow or checking off “the creative to-do list”. But recently, I’ve been calling it “the kind of peace you get from manifesting your creative energy ”.
Well, another word for it is catharsis — but energetically this is a totally new realisation for me.
Creative folks out there, what do you think? Can you relate to any of this?
LOVE,
Jeng
