January 24, 2022
Editor: Haley Gagerman
Artist: Demetria Dresser
Growing up, the act of creating was as vital to me as eating or sleeping, and creativity was the driving force behind my joy and inspiration. I filled sketchbooks up with drawings, wrote stories, and built fairy houses with painted rocks. I have a clear memory of making a holiday themed “magazine” for Thanksgiving one year. I spent days on my mom’s Dell desktop writing stories, making crossword puzzles, and ended up with 20 pages of paper stapled together, which I distributed to each family member on Thanksgiving day. My young mind was always eagerly creating projects like these and found inspiration everywhere. I expressed myself through all these creations and felt so much happiness when I was in creation mode.
In middle school, my desire to create became stronger than ever, and it was taking on a new form: making videos. I borrowed a camera from my Dad’s closet and began to make videos pretending I was like Bethany Mota, and the other popular YouTubers I watched. I quickly became engulfed in the creativity and excitement of learning to film, edit, think of video ideas, and make aesthetically pleasing settings for my videos. This gave me a sense of purpose and filled me up with joy. I began to spend more and more time making videos, and eventually gathered the courage to make my own YouTube channel and post my videos for the world to see. Every day for the next six years, my focus was on my YouTube videos and making a new and unique video to post every Sunday. I was driven by the intense creative energy and fulfillment I felt from making these videos - having the platform to express my ideas and visions gave me a sense of accomplishment. I was never bored and it felt like I had endless opportunities to explore my creativity.
As high school rolled around, my camera became replaced by textbooks, and I found myself using my computer more to write essays than to edit videos. With my focus on school, friends, and getting into college, I had less time and energy to create. Without the constant excitement and creativity involved in my YouTube channel, or even the holiday magazines and fairy houses of my childhood, I felt lost and directionless. When I had a purpose and carried creative energy throughout my days, everything felt lighter and more joyful, and even the most mundane of moments were brightened by thoughts and ideas for projects I was working on. I reflected on my days of painting rocks and writing poetry and put pressure on myself to find my creativity again, to find a new creative outlet to dedicate myself to. Despite my frustration and pleas to “just be creative again,” my heart wasn’t in it. I began to put pressure on myself to create, which made creativity feel heavy and full of weight - like a task to complete, or something to check off my to-do list.
Stuck in my creative block and feeling the frustration of not reaching my creative potential, I slowly lost all hopes of finding my creativity. However, you may find what you lost in the most unexpected of places. While I was frantically searching, it appeared again simply and almost without me realizing it was just right there in front of me. I found my connection to creativity again but had to re-discover the meaning behind it.
What I began to realize is that creativity is simple and can be found in the everyday parts of life: how you make your bed in the morning, planning out fun outfits, making a new playlist, or taking a pretty picture on your walk to class. I found that there were so many of these small moments and simple activities that were a part of my day and that I could bring the joy of creativity into my everyday life. It didn’t need to be hard or some huge accomplishment.
I also realized that creativity is not an achievement: it isn’t something to judge, grade, or compare. You can draw without being the “best” artist and still feel all the benefits and excitement of doing something creative. You can write a poem without sharing it with anybody, just to get your feelings and ideas on paper. Creativity is also an adventure - a constant exploration of yourself and the world around you.
Creativity is a lifestyle - not a product or result to reach. The beauty of creativity is its uniqueness to you, and the excitement in the endless possibilities to express yourself however you choose. When I finally lifted the pressure off of being creative and instead decided to focus on exploring the world around me, it’s amazing to see how many creative projects and pleasant surprises have trickled into my everyday life.