Making stuff and happiness
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve gotten caught up watching way, way too much news. In my defence, the world is changing, and I couldn’t help but watch. The global pandemic has created a cusp where our world may never be the same and grappling with this is hard.
Creativity is one of my strengths, but it doesn’t take much for it to slip away on me. It is not an on-demand service of my brain. I need to be in the right environment/circumstance to generate ideas. Post PhD and pre-pandemic increasing my personal creativity (planting my mental garden, so to speak) had been one of my goals.
I fill my world with creative projects, and the reason is simple—creating makes me happy.
When I heard the author of My Creative Space, Donald M. Rattner, talk on a podcast about his new book, I had to read it. It’s full of practical science based ideas to set up ones home in a way to promote creativity. I’m already planning on trying a bunch of the ideas out, such as painting a wall in my office blue.
As I was reading the book, COVID-19 arrived and everyone in my household was sent home to wait out the pandemic. I spent a week in a news induced funk, horrified by what was going on in the world—things I couldn’t affect.
I turned to idea #41 and started making stuff. First it was bread and crackers, then two shirts for my husband, followed by a felt unicorn for my daughter and now a dress for me. I’ve started seeds and resumed journalling (even though I have to get up early to find the quiet time to do it). I’m also in the midst of planning a new novel, which I’ll start writing on soon. My funk has been receding and more optimism had crept back into my world.
Making stuff isn’t the cure for what’s going on in the world at the moment—but it’s making me feel more equipped to cope.