Scheduled Creativity

This may come as a rather heretical, contradictory, insane thought:

Sometimes I feel like I need to schedule creativity.

WHAT?!

It's true: I am no longer that college student staying up into the wee hours of the night penning her soul. I am no longer the firecracker blogging in the middle of Romans class because she suddenly had a revelation about the field of flowers outside her window. Unfortunately, I felt like once I got my life together, graduated college, and became a stable human being, I began to lack the initiative to be creative. I started doing things like.... accepting systems the way they were because I was too 'tired' or too 'satisfied' with the way things were. I was satisfied with systems 'sucking less' because that was just easier. It was easier to detach.  It was easier to brush off feelings as 'immature' and 'unimportant' rather than deal with legitimate frustrations or hurt. It was easiest to shut off the section of my spirit that is free and deep-feeling.

About six months ago in the middle of an insomniatic, depressive evening alone (they happen once in a blue moon these days), it struck me:

Sometimes I detach from creativity because it's just easier. Sometimes I choose to get wrapped up in all things mundane simply because I have lacked the initiative to get fired up or passionate about ANYTHING. I had slipped in to the disease of lazy complacency (and disguised it as 'healthy adult living.') Once I started to dissect my crazy, insomniac, depressive syndrome I realized it had been months since I had been artistic or creative about hardly anything! It was a painful realization--I had let a huge part of myself go out of either laziness... or worse.... fear. Fear of facing my creativity and all it had to say.

Since then, I have decided to schedule 'creative sessions.' It's not much, but it's something. It's a conscious decision and effort. It's a choice. It's a battle. And it is good. Since I've been scheduling my moments of carved-out creative time, I have returned to my college-aged ability to process at rapid speeds. I have started to view the world in a brighter light. I have more forgiveness and compassion for others. I have more forgiveness and compassion for myself. It's like a part of me has been revived, and I am not sure why I ever let it die. It's funny what living in total truth can do for you.

So if you, like me, tend to view the world through an incredibly creative, complex, and/or artistic lens...

Do yourself a favor.

Don't let it die: Do whatever possible to keep your creativity alive, even if that means stepping into a mundane box of SCHEDULED creativity.

And those are the thoughts for Tuesday.

~Rachel~