Why you need to create for you first
Don’t worry, I’m not encouraging you to be selfish.
One Saturday a few months ago, I decided to sit down and write for an audience of one: me. Not for a blog post, or an academic paper, or a letter to a friend. I wrote simply to enjoy the process of watching my words fall on a blank page. It was a nice change after writing with my audience in mind, most of the time.
Not that writing for others is a bad thing.
We need to write for our audiences, to share our thoughts, and learn from one another’s experiences. Shared words build bridges with friends now, or those to become buddies later. Inspiring words published on a page bring light to hard days, and new insight into humdrum thoughts.
Writing with an audience in mind is also a way to direct the craft to something other than yourself. It makes our words become warmer and less self-focused. It turns writing into an act of love and in doing so, we find joy because anything done with love eventually brings joy, even if it might take awhile to arrive.
But writing isn’t only for building bridges. It’s also a wonderful way of honing the best in one’s self. And in this way, better equipping us to delight others with our words later.
I remembered this insight today while reading these rambling phrases I wrote that Saturday:
That’s all I did today. Work. I sat in front of my computer at 10 a.m. and only got up twice to take quick eating breaks. It’s nearly 5:30 p.m. and my brain feels stretched to its limits.
Despite the exhaustion, it feels good to have sat here this long, just writing. Even if what I write here is something only I will read, the discipline, courage, and passion that grew from sitting here and tapping away on my keyboard makes me feel accomplished, and like I grew somehow. And that the stamina I developed today is a good seed to plant.
Reading it again made me realize something about the work we do, especially creative work: there’s something noble about working to sharpen our skills first before attempting to please others.
When we do this, we become more genuine creators. We focus on bringing out the best in our skills and content first and train ourselves to make something we truly believe is valuable. And that’s what we share later.
Our world needs this kind of authentic creativity more than ever. It is hungry for words, poems, paintings, sculptures, dishes, songs that are after more than stats. We need works of art that uplift, inspire, and awaken in us new and truer ways of seeing ourselves and what goes on around us.
That’s our deeper task each time you or I sit down and write, work, cook, sculpt, or create whatever it is we create.
It’s not what others will think or say, or not say, or our frequent worry no one will be there to listen or read.
What you or I make is about how valuable we believe it is. Then, only later, inviting others to discover that value.
To discover with us why they need to pay attention to what we have to say,
to gaze at the landscape we painted last summer,
to taste what we have made in our kitchens,
or to sing that song we wrote.
But we’ll only be able to help them see why if we ourselves see why. For you and I to see why, we need to pause our desire to please them for a few moments and focus instead on what is truly worth our contemplation and delight.
That’s why you need to create for you first. You need to become better at seeing what truly matters in what you make. You need to focus on planting that idea or vision in your imagination, coaxing its truth, beauty or goodness out with the unique way only you can speak or write or make. And enjoy the process. Really enjoy it.
As each minute passes spent typing away, cooking, knitting, or painting, you become better at what you do and better prepared to share the best of you. By focusing on what you love making without the distraction of working for others, you direct your creative gifts to give others something more, something broader, something wiser.
You become like a mountain guide who lead hikers upward to experience breathtaking views from life’s summits. To be that, you need to climb those invisible summits at first alone. Then, only after, can you take others with you.
Each time you create something new for you, you are like the guide taking his practice climb. No one might see what you see yet. But all that matters now is that you do.
