Creativity is my escape.

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

I do not apologize for that.

Some people, like my father, fish. Others hike. And many are rabid sports fans. All good. Pick your poison. 

I write. Record music. Build things.

When the world becomes noise, which is very frequent these days, creation is where I go to hear myself think.

Strange, the work itself is rarely peaceful.

Songs fight back.

Videos refuse to cooperate.

Chapters collapse under revision.

Recording sessions reveal mistakes.

And then there are the deadlines.

Yet somehow I find more peace wrestling with a difficult creative problem than sitting comfortably in front of a television. 

I don’t even go to movies anymore. That’s two to three hours lost that will never return. However, I think I will be tempted by The Odyssey. The movie will provide a front-row seat to the hero’s journey.

Why?

I have thought about that question more than once. The obvious answer is that I enjoy it. But that doesn’t explain much.

I like pizza, but don’t eat it. 

I enjoy sleeping in. But never take a nap in the afternoon. 

I enjoy a good cup of coffee.  Alcohol I could live without, but coffee? 

If those things disappeared tomorrow, somehow, I would survive.

Creativity is different.

When I am working on a song, a chapter, a recording session, or a video, my attention has somewhere to go. The static in my head settles down. Problems that seemed enormous in the morning become manageable within minutes.

Nothing outside has changed.

The bills are still there. The job is a necessary evil. The world is still arguing with itself.

In the act of creativity, something shifts.

Maybe that is why I keep coming back. Creating gives me something that many parts of life do not.

A place to focus. A place to build. Effort still means something. The best kind of codependence in the most preferential way. 

When I am working on a song, a chapter, a recording session, or a video, my attention has somewhere to go. The static in my head settles down. Problems that seemed enormous in the morning become manageable within minutes.

Nothing outside has changed. But living in a place where effort still means something changes everything.

The Noise

The world is deafening. Not a complaint. An observation. 

Some of my friends are giving in to it. That’s sad. Why hand over your power to something you can’t control?

There is always something demanding attention. The job. The news. Somebody else’s crisis. Opinions. Good lord, the sale pitches. A notification from a phisher. Headlines designed to make everyone angry before breakfast.

Everyone has an agenda, including me. At times, it feels like nobody has anything useful to say on social media.

The peculiar challenge is that the noise is not always outside.

Some mornings I don’t feel like doing much of anything. The chapter can wait. Forget about the recording session. I don’t want to edit another video. I have no shortage of reasons why today’s project can become tomorrow’s work.

Then coffee gets poured. Headphones go on. One sentence finds itself on the page. The project starts to draw attention to itself. Ten minutes pass without notice. The work takes over.

The world is the same, and I still have to face today’s troubles. But I focus, think, and hear myself again. 

When the noise builds, I create.

The Workshop

A song starts differently from a blog post.

A blog post starts differently from a video.

A rehearsal has very little in common with a recording session.

Different tools. Different problems.

The funny thing is that it doesn’t seem to matter what I am working on.

A song.

A blog post.

A video.

A recording session.

A rehearsal.

The doorway is different. The destination is usually the same.

I might sit down to finish a chapter and spend twenty minutes trying to untangle a paragraph that refuses to cooperate. A single sentence matters. 

On another day, it might be a drum track that feels stiff or a vocal that doesn’t quite sit in the mix.

At first, the work can feel like a chore.

Then something happens.

The same paragraph gets rewritten for the fourth time.

A track that sounded brilliant yesterday now sounds ridiculous.

A simple revision turns into an hour of repairs.

Before long, the thing that didn’t seem worth doing has my full attention.

All of the garbage that piles up in life is still out there somewhere, demanding my essence. The unfinished list of things that need attention. None of it diminishes.

I just stop listening for a while. The work takes its place.

A few hours later, I usually look up and realize I haven’t thought about any of life’s crap for quite some time.

Traction

There is something satisfying about movement.

I am not talking about completion. Movement.

A book does not get written in a day. Songs do not arrive fully formed. Videos do not edit themselves. Most projects look unfinished for a long time.

I used to agonize about not finishing my work. 

If I have a problem that has been sitting on the corner of the desk for a week and finally gives up an answer, that’s enough.

The project does not have to be finished.

It just needs traction.

By the end of the day, the work is no longer sitting in the same place where I found it, and I am not either.

Tomorrow there will be another problem to solve.

That is tomorrow’s problem.

Today, the wheels are turning.

Why Media Doesn’t Satisfy

Three hours can disappear in front of a screen, in the studio, or working on a chapter.

The time is spent. Gone.

The result isn’t.

After an evening of focus on my projects, a chapter is further along. A song has changed shape. A recording session has uncovered a problem that wasn’t visible before.

Fill in the blanks. You know where I am heading.

The Caveat

The workshop is not a substitute for life.

Writing can’t replace a tough conversation. Of which I have had to have many.

A song cannot pay a bill.

Sometimes the work has to wait.

Sometimes responsibility comes first.

There are times when a situation needs to be talked out, even when it is something one wants to avoid. 

The temptation is to stay in my world where things make sense. Songs follow rules. Chapters can be revised. Mixes can be fixed.

Life is less cooperative.

The studio is a wonderful place to live. It is not a monastery.

My Survival Mechanism

By now you see it. The pattern is obvious. The work has been showing up for decades.

Songs. Recording sessions. Band rehearsals. Blog posts. Videos.

Some have gone well. Some have not. Many never earned a dime. That was never the point. The point is what happens when there is nothing to work on. There is never ‘nothing’ to work on.

If I miss a day, my nerves are rattled, so I don’t. I want to avoid the restlessness. Best to avoid the restlessness. Just ask those closest to me. 

The urge to continue taps on the shoulder. Incessantly. 

There is always something waiting. A blank page. A new song. A rough draft scribbled in a  notebook. A question appears in the margin.

Before long, there is a page full of things that did not exist the week before. That is usually how it starts. Not with a grand plan, with inspiration arriving on schedule, or sometimes not.

There is always something worth returning to.  Ideas stick around. They keep asking for another look. Eventually, attention follows.

The Constant

I stopped questioning my suppositions. There is always something waiting. A chapter that needs another pass. A song that needs to be resolved. A recording session that can be tweaked. A video that really has no teeth. 

The workbench is never empty. Maybe that is why the years have passed this way. One project leading to another. One idea making room for the next.

Every project succeeds to some degree. Each does not necessarily pay off. Does that make sense?

This is where I keep ending up.

Challenges in all my projects raise their ugly heads. Thank God. There is heat, exposed impurities, and something being strengthened through the inferno of the crucible.

That’s fine.

I’d rather be here than anywhere else.

Can We Help You?

Where do you go when the world becomes noise?

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As always, thank you for spending a few minutes with us in this strange little corner of the internet.

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