Creative Rut
I used to write songs. Lots of them. Sometimes as many as 3 a week. I used to build things (everything from nerdy plastic models to furniture). I also had started dabbling in writing for the fun of it. But not anymore. Doing 'creative' things just doesn't feel like a real part of my life at this time...
Sure, I have time to sit down at the guitar and come up with a tune, but I never have time to develop it. Right now I must have 20 or 30 'fragments' of unfinished songs dancing in my head that I haven't found the time to really dig into.
A professor at grad school told me that if I did music professionally (which I do), I would find myself not enjoying the 'creative time' with music that I used to. Man, was he right. All my time and energy gets poured into church-related things - and that's certainly not an unworthy endeavor, but sometimes I'd like to be able to channel some of that energy back into personal expressions of music and writing...
More so, ever since I've had kids, the creative 'rut' has gotten worse and worse.
Some of my inspiration is gone, too. Nothing could get my creative juices going faster than finally reaching the top of Oak Mountain on a mountain bike on a fall day and just staring at the valley below. Wow. Inspiration at its finest. I could take in both the beauty of my surroundings and the solitude of being away from everything else for just a little while.
Or weekend road-trips to the beach with my college roommates (back in the days when 'responsibility' seemed so far in the future)... I used to sit on these rocks by the lighthouse on Tybee Island as the sun started going down. I'd stay there so long, I had to swim back after the tide came in. But I'd feel at such peace in those moments... My mind would clear, and I'd find that something deep down inside me screaming to express itself somehow. Poof. A song was born.
But working at home with 2 kids in the house - surrounded by the same unchanging 4 walls of my house - is not so conducive to creativity, I suppose.
I've got to get out more.
For me, creativity has always been one of the best ways from me to express everything from my spirituality to my emotions. I think it honors God to be creative...after all, God is obviously a creative God. I think "Sing to the Lord a new song" is so much more than a call to worship in music, but a call to tap into the deep areas of our minds/hearts/souls to find new ways to express ourselves in our own way, rather than just vomit out the words others have already said.
So it's vital to me that I figure out how to get out of this rut.
On the edge of the great horizon, where the ocean meets the sky...
Standing there at the land's end, wishing I could fly...
Sure, I have time to sit down at the guitar and come up with a tune, but I never have time to develop it. Right now I must have 20 or 30 'fragments' of unfinished songs dancing in my head that I haven't found the time to really dig into.
A professor at grad school told me that if I did music professionally (which I do), I would find myself not enjoying the 'creative time' with music that I used to. Man, was he right. All my time and energy gets poured into church-related things - and that's certainly not an unworthy endeavor, but sometimes I'd like to be able to channel some of that energy back into personal expressions of music and writing...
More so, ever since I've had kids, the creative 'rut' has gotten worse and worse.
Some of my inspiration is gone, too. Nothing could get my creative juices going faster than finally reaching the top of Oak Mountain on a mountain bike on a fall day and just staring at the valley below. Wow. Inspiration at its finest. I could take in both the beauty of my surroundings and the solitude of being away from everything else for just a little while.
Or weekend road-trips to the beach with my college roommates (back in the days when 'responsibility' seemed so far in the future)... I used to sit on these rocks by the lighthouse on Tybee Island as the sun started going down. I'd stay there so long, I had to swim back after the tide came in. But I'd feel at such peace in those moments... My mind would clear, and I'd find that something deep down inside me screaming to express itself somehow. Poof. A song was born.
But working at home with 2 kids in the house - surrounded by the same unchanging 4 walls of my house - is not so conducive to creativity, I suppose.
I've got to get out more.
For me, creativity has always been one of the best ways from me to express everything from my spirituality to my emotions. I think it honors God to be creative...after all, God is obviously a creative God. I think "Sing to the Lord a new song" is so much more than a call to worship in music, but a call to tap into the deep areas of our minds/hearts/souls to find new ways to express ourselves in our own way, rather than just vomit out the words others have already said.
So it's vital to me that I figure out how to get out of this rut.
On the edge of the great horizon, where the ocean meets the sky...
Standing there at the land's end, wishing I could fly...
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