So, why even do it?

“Time is short and the water is rising.”

- Raymond Carver

I can’t help but laugh and cringe when someone calls me a creative. There’s a mixture of shame and pride that comes along with the moniker. I think, in large part, this is directly influenced by stigmas and caricatures associated with the word.

You know some of these cliches all too well.

• The art student with thick-framed glasses drunkenly stumbling upon their own genius in the middle of the night in the dramatically dim-lit apartment.
• The ad copywriter who can only produce good work by candlelight on a typewriter about three deep in a bottle of small-batch bourbon.
• Or the tortured artist who can only make something beautiful when they are in a deep, intense state of suffering.

I never went to art school. (I can’t draw).

I can’t write copy drunk—not anything good, anyway. (I don’t know anyone can).

I’m not a tortured artist. (Hard to be tortured when I have an Instagram account for my cat).

Still, there’s nothing more elusive than the drive to be creative. My own motives for making “art” (cue dramatic eye-roll sequence) are about as capricious, fickle, nefarious, and mercurial as anything could possibly be.

There are pure moments of satisfaction when you work your ass off to make something that connects with other humans in a meaningful way.

There are also some of the most profound and confounding feelings of frustration and disappointment when something that you personally love falls flat and isn’t perceived as you envisioned it.

I’ve flipped the creative coin many times with it landing squarely on the latter far more than the former.

But bitterness is boring.

When you make something and it fails, the easy default is bitterness. But this is a boring place to live.

It’s boring because even though you feel like you’re trapped in a well, you behave like the king or “yass kween” (am I doing this right?) of the mountain that “no one understands.” Only you can comment on the creative process in a meaningful way, and “non creatives” just don’t get it.

Sure, it’s definitely difficult to fail. It fucking sucks. You shouldn’t listen to anyone telling you to suck it up when something you work hard at doesn’t translate well, or even worse, is ignored.

Your feelings are valid. So feel them—ALL of them. Then learn what you need to learn, and take those lessons to the next thing. “What doesn’t kill us…” right?

(Not that I know anything about that. This is all PURELY hypothetical and parenthetical: pun intended, along with your judgement of my bad dad jokes).

There are no easy answers, just opportunities.

As I grow older, and as I continue to ignite creative projects both in my personal and professional life, I grow weary of the concept of the “entitled creative.” But in an equal stroke, I fully understand it.

It’s painful to put something out in the world, or in the semi-mortal words of the sad boi indie rock godfathers, Cursive, “Art is Hard.”

But in those moments of pain, I’ve learned so much—about myself, the world, the creative process, and the people who have come on my many creative journeys throughout my life.

So here I am, launching another creative project with the uber meta-purpose of expressing my own discontent with the counterculture of creatives who make up creative brand teams, art collectives, punk bands that drive culture forward.

By and large, I think “we” have suffered long enough under the notion that we can’t make good shit without all the creative entitlement that comes along with any art form we’re pursuing.

Mostly, though — I want to try to answer the question “why even do it?”

All I can say right now is “Time is short and the water is rising.”

Thanks for listening.