Finding my elusive creative genius
It’s 3:00 am in the morning. I’m seated in front of my PC trying to come up with designs for a project I’ve been at for the last three weeks. A drawing pen in my hand. I’m fidgeting with sketches and none of them seem to make the cut. My mind is blank and I honestly have no idea how to proceed. It’s completely ludicrous given I’ve had a go at this for the last three days and there’s still nothing to show for it…zero. Nada!
Maybe it’s a burn out? How I wish it is. Not as a badge of honour but as sign that there is something amiss. But this is too long though to be a burn out, for me. It’s not just the last three days or weeks or month. It’s a whole damn year!
It’s like my creative spark fizzled at the beginning of 2017. Like a candle in the wind. I know it sounds unrealistic, but this seems to be the year I’ve created nothing to feel proud of. Well as an entrepreneur, I’ve progressed linearly. But as a designer, it’s been like one step forward, ten steps backwards. I know I can do better than this, damn it.
I feel it in the deepest part of me that there is greatness inside. I just can’t seem to connect with it.
It’s never been like this before. I’ve had weeks of a burn out, but never something this long. It’s like a privilege to even come up with one good design. I feel worthless. In fact if I wasn’t my own boss, I guess I would be fired by now. Even while some clients still believe in me and have stuck with me all the way as depressing as it is. No one can seem to understand it. Not even I can decipher this. I gotta get some solution to this…
So my quest for redemption led me on a path of inquisition and somewhat unfamiliar territories. Perhaps getting out my comfort zone could break the deadlock.
About 2 months back, I took a 40 day break off social media. Very few noticed. Precisely because I’ve never been that active on social media besides Whatsapp and Instagram. Maybe secluding myself to have some me time would straighten up things. I was wrong. Nothing was solved in that solitude.
I took a weekend off to visit the source of the Nile (in Jinja), all the same nothing! I travelled upcountry, 200 km farther than I had ever been before, to places I had never even imagined existed. Probably the view of the countryside would stir up something or the 500 and something km on the road would ignite my creative side given some of my best ideas have come on the road. All I got was a sore back.
Please don’t tell me i simply need a break. If there’s a year I've had an enormous amount of breaks, this is it. Unless you’re saying i just retire from the game. A friend suggested i go swimming, i’m yet to try that. Clearly that shows how desperate I've reached that i’m willing to try out anything given there’s a slightest hope i’ll regain my design mojo.
Why exactly is this happening? They say Karma is a bitch, so which exact sins am I paying for? I know I ain’t perfect, this though seems like a burden heavy enough to carry.
Should I say we are all given a certain measure of creative stock and I had presumably used up all mine? What a pity that would be. I can’t have exhausted my creative stock when I was just getting started. Conceivably God is trying to remind me that I’m not the master of my own fate. My hard work won’t count for anything lest He’s given it to me. But I doubt a loving God would bestow greatness upon you only to quench it out in your primes.
Maybe the universe is trying to tell me that I’m not as talented as I thought I was. One thing I know for sure is that art is my life and passion. I’m married to this craft and I don’t expect that’s ever going to change. So that rules out the option that I’m pursuing the wrong career.
One could suggest that I’m depressed. I highly doubt that given I’m living some of the best days of my life. A traditional African would say simply cut to the chase and say someone is bewitching me. Probably I’ve been way too caught up in lots of things that I can’t seem to know myself anymore. I’ve failed to reconnect with my creative spirit. Or I just can’t concentrate long enough on something so as to break through my creative psyche.
Bottom line this isn’t cool at all. It’s pathetic. It’s hopeless and helpless. And more so pretty much ironic because I was celebrating creating 200 T-shirt designs at the beginning of the year. The pangs of this struggle are masked by my cheerful demeanor and have-it-under-control attitude.
No one can fathom the pain of my hustle. Maybe my clients to whom it’s shown in the relentless requests for more time. To most, they think I’m swamped with work so I don’t have time to do their work so I instead keep asking for more time. Few can tell that I’m really struggling with design. And either way they still find it hard to believe. At least not the great ABK.
Oh how the mighty have fallen! In case you haven’t noticed, I even stopped calling myself awesome ABK…reason. I don’t see anything awesome about me anymore.
Pressure is coming in from everywhere. The capriciousness of the creative process leaves me worn out and beaten down. Could my best days be behind me. This is the kind of feeling that makes you want to throw in the towel. Maybe try something new. But that’s not me. I’m not the type that gives up. Especially on something I love.
Am I alone? Are there other creative figures out there facing the same struggles? Or I’m dying alone in this movie.
To my relief, I am not alone. This is a twist and turn all creative people across all genres face at one point. A mind boggling and uncanny season that distorts and warps egos.
A few weeks ago, one of my hand lettering role models that I follow on instagram @kirillrichert was lamenting as to how work is depressing. He couldn’t imagine how the work he loves so much didn’t feel that great anymore, didn’t feel the same way about him in return. The idea of a guy like @kirillrichert who has one of the best lettering styles I’ve seen go through such a phase is pretty much scaring and at the same time a relief. Scary because if he can go through that, what hope is there for rookies like me? And yet it’s a relief to know that professionals also experience such creative dryness, so i’m not alone.
Misery loves company — unknown
And I’m pretty much sure there are others going through the same. Maybe you’re even reading this. Are we doomed? Should we pack our bags and apologize to the world what a fraud we’ve been and now that we’re finally caught?
Elizabeth Gilberts in her TED Talk ‘Your elusive creative genius’ describes how in ancient Rome and Greece they didn’t believe creativity came from a human being. The Romans believed creativity came from a disembodied creative spirit they called a genius. They believed that a genius was this, sort of magical divine entity, who was believed to literally live in the walls of an artist’s studio.
That kind of thought process helped build a psychological construct around the artist from the results of his work. Knowing you’re not responsible for your creative psyche helped shield the artist from all unmanageable expectations about performance.
“If your work was brilliant, you couldn’t take all the credit for it, everybody knew that you had this disembodied genius who had helped you. If your work bombed, not entirely your fault, you know? Everyone knew your genius was kind of lame”. Your elusive creative Genius ~ Elizabeth Gilberts
Unfortunately this all changed with the renaissance and the beginning of rational humanism where people started to believe that creativity came completely from the self of the individual. Whereas this paradigm shift didn’t look that momentous. It’s turned out to have enormous destructive consequences in its own way.
Now artists are really concerned about what others think of their work. And even when they don’t care about people’s opinions, they are daunted by their own view. This wouldn’t be bad, but the thing with any creative venture, we are judged by our work.
If your work is brilliant, you are praised. If your work is lame, you are shunned. It’s that simple.
The problem with this yardstick is that we also consequently use that to measure our work. When we create something exceptional, the pressure on ourselves is so high that we are scared we might never create something equally good. (Matter of fact, I’ve been told countless times that the IAM T-shirt design — shown in the cover photo is my peak. Bluntly put, I’ll never create a T-shirt design better).
Conversely when we create something sub standard, we tend to think probably that’s all we are. Not good enough. Probably we might work all our whole life at this craft and nothing’s ever going to come of it. Either of the thought processes drives some chills down my spine. It sounds like a clever way of saying you’re doomed without necessarily putting a gun to your head and blowing your eyeballs out of your temple.
Now thinking about my own creative drought makes thousands of thoughts run through my mind. Am I done with it? Did my genius forsake me for another artist? Where did I come short for my genius to get this elusive? Am I an impersonator, a fraud?
Amidst all this chaos, one thing though that stands true. Hardwork beats talent when talent fails to work hard. The hustle. Persistence. That sheer willingness to keep going on even when the stars don’t seem to align, to light up. The only way around this is by going through it.
If you’re going through hell, keep going. ~ Winston Churchill
So instead of looking for that eureka moment — the light bulb moment — when everything auto-magically becomes lucid, I’ll keep on grinding and hope things will work out. I’ll do my job. I’ll continue to show up for my piece of it.
I’ll stay steadfast in helping others master the craft. I will walk with them as long as my legs permit. Maybe, and just maybe, as I help them find the way in their creative journeys, I’ll unconsciously find mine along the way.
Like the old adage goes, “it’s always darkest before the dawn”. Who knows, maybe this could be the start of a whole new thing. A reinvention. Genius anew. Who knows?
Only time will tell. Stay hungry. Stay thirsty.
