Steve Jobs said,
, “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.”
I’ve been creating all my life, but I never considered myself a creator until recently. As eloquently put by the late tech master, I never had to consciously try — I never thought about why I took a picture of something. It seemed obvious to me for reasons unknown. A switch would just turn on in my brain and before I knew it I was taking a picture, video, writing, or drawing something. For the most part, I never had trouble with knowing what to capture. For years I never strayed from what I knew I was good at. I never took any creative risks, I barely played with the different settings on my camera mainly because I didn't really know how to use them. I took pictures for friends the way I knew they or their parents would like them- simple. Basic. Average. All my friends would tell me how I'm so 'different' or 'artsy', so I was confident that I would succeed in college.
The climax of the funk I was in would follow me like a shadow for the entire first semester. Coming to Los Angeles, I thought that this was where I belonged and that I would thrive. But everyone in the state of California seems to have a pretty basic sense of visual aesthetics. I spent all of first semester trying to prove to myself that I was good enough. Constantly comparing my work with my peers and trying so desperately to turn in work that would live up to my own judgement. I often felt that my creating didn't matter because there was always someone who was more talented than me. The voices of those who doubted my choice of career rang in my head for months, and I had started to believe them. I was ready to give up and accept the fact that I’m not as good as I thought I was and that this may have been the wrong field for me.
But then I went back home to the East Coast for winter break, and during this time of relaxation and solitude, I got a haircut. Somewhere around 13 inches were chopped off that cold and cloudy afternoon. I’ve been doing the same routine: grow my hair out for a year and then chop it off. This haircut was different- metaphorically. It freed me of more than the literal weight of long hair. I had a new sense of motivation to create content I only thought about in my head. To stop saying to myself that I wish I had taken that photo or that I could create something like that and instead actually DO it. The burden to prove to others that I was capable drastically shrank and my mind was spiraling with new ideas. The end of the funk had finally arrived.
My creative block was not all that bad. I got to relearn the pure and necessary value of art in my life. I got a sense of the type of photographer I wanted to be by changing my 'I wish I took that' mindset to 'I will take that'. I’ve been renewed by the art that has been right in front of my face this whole time that I didn’t even see. I gained new views to what art can be and what art should be to me; there are so many things in my head that I want to vomit out and produce now.
This isn’t to say that all of a sudden I’m going to be a genius with tons of ideas and things I’ll be creating. I’m writing my experience to encourage anyone who may be in a creative block. It does end eventually, and it will give you new perspectives and things to do once you’re out of it. Though it may seem like you’re going nowhere, funks can teach a lot and give you a new perspective about art, life, creating, and yourself that you may not have ever learned if you hadn't been stuck in that rut.
