When was your last creative orgasm?
Mine was this morning, thanks for asking — oh wait, hold on…just got another one. Phew!
I live for those moments when two ideas collide in my head, create a sparkle and open a new door and i’m not shy to say i experience creative climax pretty much on a daily basis, oftentimes multiple.
To me, a day without at least trying to create something new feels like a lost day, might it be the most mundane endeavour like cooking a new dish. A lot goes on in my mind as well, most days i go to bed either too excited to sleep or too tired from a whirlwind of new business ideas, concepts, catchlines, imaginary dialogs, blogpost titles going in circles — yes i think a lot in slogans — probably a side-effect from working in advertising for a long time.
Intellectual masturbation? Hell yes! Just like sex drive, creativity is one of those things in life for which there is no right or wrong, no step by step process, just freedom, letting go, trust and unbridled imagination.
You may also think i’m bragging a little about my ‘performance’ here ; hey, i never said i was amazing at it, i’m just saying i try to be creative as often as i can. Would you judge a couple having sex everyday?
Our creative lust can also be killed very easily, too easily. We were all born curious, adventurous, creative, but as adults we may have let this side of us run dry. Although ‘Creativity’ systematically comes up as one of the (if not the most) important skills in life, our society, parenting styles, education systems more often than not demonstrate us the opposite.
So let’s try and picture for a minute that creativity is as vital as sex, and imagine how we might keep the fire alive.
Let’s come out of the closet
First, i will put it out there. I am creative, and so are you! The banker, the teacher, the ‘project manager’, the stay at home mum, you don’t have to have ‘Art’ or ‘Creative’ in your job title to be creative. Maybe in the past you felt you like had to hide it? You were not sure you had it in you? You got discouraged by an art teacher? You had to position yourself in your group of friend as ‘the serious one’? Maybe your sister was ‘the artist’, which made you ‘the non-artist’.
So let’s reset : If you are alive, you are creative.
Now all you have to do is find out what type of creativity arouses you the most.
Let’s experiment
Just like sexual orientation, you may not know for sure you’re into girls before you kiss one — well, you may never know you’re a painter unless you start painting. Try different things, many things, often. I read this week that having sex 12 times a month adds 20 years to your life. Well, there may not be a study about this but i bet creative living has the same effect.
Create something new 12 times this month and observe how it changes you, your mind, your body, the pleasure it brings you, the way it makes you feel, and see life differently, more interestingly, how it awakens your senses.
Creativity is rooted in action, in doing, making. For me for example, this blog is my outlet right now, and what i love the most about it is that it takes me places i didn’t expect. When i start a blogpost, i usually have no idea how it will end, i let the typing and the words just jump out and lead the way.
Let’s enjoy the foreplay
How exciting and scary at the same time, this time when you meet someone new and rediscover yourselves together. Touching, smelling, asking, telling, feeling, learning, spending an explosive night and the next morning sensing a colder mood.
Creativity is not a linear process, for some of us it requires daily practice, for others, it can go away for months, and come back one spring morning.
It sometimes comes in periods of doubt, confusion, it can feel unsettling, let you feel too exposed. Like anything important in life, it doesn’t come easily, that’s how you know it’s worth pursuing.
Let’s get horny
Simply put : The more you do it, the more you do it.
Creating helps you see new sources of inspiration, which in turn give you more ideas. Speak, write, record, Insta, let the inspiration sink in, it’s already there, just next to you, in this graffiti on the Berliner wall, in the guts of families digging a tunnel to go west under the same wall 50 years ago, in the Japanese eggplant you bought Saturday, in this orange butterfly, in…this cute guy on his bike.
Do it solo, Do It Yourself, do it with a partner, do it in a group — it’s spring — reveal a shoulder, write a short story, go out without a bra, go out with a drawing pad, go dance tango at Monbijoupark next Sunday, crayon on the sidewalk, try a new position, try an apposition, welcome unlikely encounters, create unlikely encounters. Let the fireworks season begin!
