I began keeping a journal on November 23, 2015 out of necessity. There was a lot going on in my life, and I felt the pressing need to articulate my own reactions to these external circumstances and see laid bare the tempestuous and anxious thoughts that run through my brain. I remember going to the Fred Meyer next to my school and buying the cheapest little composition book I could find. In those 200 blank pages, I have discovered a love of writing. I found that I enjoy crystallizing my thoughts and finding in them some part of myself previously undiscoverable. I found the deep love of self-expression.
Writing became, to me, the outlet by which I was able to see who I was from an outside perspective. I was suddenly granted the ability to peer into my own subconscious and discern uncharted layers of my personality. But writing has done more for me than self-discovery … writing has given me the ability to create.
The human soul possesses a burning desire for one chief opportunity… we above all long to create, to be creative. Among our race we have found innumerable ways to satisfy this desire – some are blessed with the ability to build and shape; some are able to make music; some are able to make others laugh and some are able to show us the stories of the world. Prior to November 23rd, I had no idea what my gift of creation was. I always felt in myself the burning desire to create, but I had no outlet. I’m terrible at building things, and I have no musical talent (except around Christmas), so this desire lay dormant within me for 18 years. But when I found my outlet in that cheap journal, the desire within me overflowed, and I suddenly began writing constantly: poems, short stories and articles flew from my fingertips like arrows from a bow, and I found release and satisfaction in creation. I promise that you, whoever you may be, will experience an entirely new dimension of life when you release the dormant draw to create. But if you find yourself in the same situation I was – feeling creative drive but having no known skills – then how do you find your outlet of creativity?
Your answer is to be found at the intersection of two questions: what do I enjoy doing and what am I good at? If you enjoy, say, working with people and also find yourself with a knack for financial intelligence, then your art, your outlet of creativity, could be helping people with their finances. Does that sound terrible and mundane? Then it’s not your art … keep looking. Even if you don’t find anything at first keep on searching – it is imperative to have something by which you can utilize your innate skillset and also express the creative drive within you.
What will you produce for the world? How will you elevate your skill to that of more than ordinary significance? Stop separating the artistic and the mundane, and let everything you do be steeped in creativity.
