Writing blog posts several times a week as I try to do is a pleasure, not a chore, and I find myself mentally arranging my time schedule during the day now so that I have enough time during the evening to write. I try to hang onto some of the creative ideas that pop up during my work day in order to use my evening time to develop them. The creative process cannot be dictated to, but it can be encouraged by allotting oneself a good slot of time within which to write, read, or be creative in numerous ways. In other words, one should have some time to ‘play’ each day that is all about pursuing one’s creative interests. This form of play for me is not about mindless activity, but rather about letting one’s mind off the leash that it is on for most of the (fairly-structured) work day. For many years I craved that free time but never managed to create the space necessary to allow it to happen. I worked too much, or housework took over, or there were other constant distractions and interruptions, TV being one of the major time-killers. I wanted ‘a room of my own’ a la Virginia Woolf. I don’t see how anything creative can happen without that room. As I have gotten older, I have realized that ‘if not now, when?’ When am I going to allow my creativity to happen? When was I going to finally focus on the creative ideas I have? How long was I going to wait? They are important questions, because I talk to so many people who want to pursue their creative interests but just don’t know how to get there. I know how they feel because I was there myself a few years ago. But I am not there anymore.
One of the first things I had to do was to give up TV watching and surfing mindlessly from one channel to the next in the vain hope that there would be something actually interesting on TV. It has not been difficult to give up watching TV because most of what is on TV these days does not interest me. Reality programs bore me, and except for the occasional movie on one of our movie channels, most of the other regular programs are so much alike that no one particular program stands out. There are just so many animal, nature, history or crime programs that can be watched. I watch a few of them from time to time and then I want to be outdoors myself, photographing nature or taking a long walk up along the river, or some such thing. It was not difficult to give up TV, and once I weaned myself off that particular bad habit, I had to be careful not to fill the extra time with unnecessary housework or other things, because that is another time filler that satisfies the passive part of the brain. I also had to get comfortable with silence again. And by silence I mean lack of distractions—verbal, visual or tactile. It’s not that I’ve been uncomfortable with silence, but more that society around me seems to be uncomfortable with it. I cannot step onto a bus or walk into a store or a mall without some kind of music blaring or without being assaulted by giant TVs that advertise this or that item, or without some well-meaning salesperson attempting to sell me something. I cannot have one work day without an important meeting or without answering numerous emails. There is always something to attend to. Since I live in a city, one might argue that it will be difficult to find silence, and that is true generally unless I find a park with few people in it as happens from time to time. Most importantly, I find silence at home because I have created that space for myself in the evening. I actually look forward to that time now, not because it is ‘my’ time but because I know that when I enter that silent zone, I will be finding out more about myself and that is a worthwhile endeavor. I write on my laptop, and in the beginning I had to fight the temptations to check my email and to surf the net periodically. After a while it became easier not to give in to those temptations. So that now I can honestly say that I use my silent time creatively and it makes me happy to be able to say that. I write for free, yet the activity of writing gives me the most satisfaction these days compared to my work activities. Some people have commented that if I had to write for a living, I would feel differently. Perhaps that is true, I cannot say. I would welcome the opportunity if it came along in the form of some journalistic endeavor or similar. And I do write more than my blog—I write poetry and have been doing so for many years. I have written one book and have plans to write another. It’s just to let it happen, and that is what I am doing these days, letting my creative interests take me where they want to go. I’m enjoying the journey and do not miss the activities I have given up in order to make this possible.
